Motherhood, labor market trajectories, and the allocation of talent: harmonized evidence on 29 countries

Autores
Berniell, Inés; Berniell, María Lucila; Mata, Dolores de la; Edo, María; Fawaz, Yarine; Machado, Matilde P.; Marchionni, Mariana
Año de publicación
2020
Idioma
español castellano
Tipo de recurso
documento de trabajo
Estado
versión enviada
Descripción
In this paper we assess whether changes in labor market decisions upon motherhood lead to potential inefficient allocations of talent. Using an event study approach with retrospective data drawn from SHARE for 29 European countries we show that motherhood effects go beyond the well studied effects of labor market participation decisions: the arrival of the first child substantially affects the uptaking of alternative modes of employment, such as part-time and self-employment, that are characterized by flexible or reduced work schedules but also lower pay on average. We also show that the size of labor market responses to motherhood are larger in societies with more conservative social-norms or with weak policies regarding work-life balance. To assess the effects of motherhood over the allocation of talent, we explore how labor market responses to parenthood vary by alternative measures of talent or ability. We find that all women, even those with the highest level of ability and abler than their husbands face large motherhood effects, while men show virtually no changes in the labor market when becoming fathers. We also find that mothers who become self-employed after the birth of the first child are those that are less entrepreneurial-able according to cognitive ability and personality traits shown to impair business survival. Overall, our results suggest relevant changes in the allocation of talent caused by gender differences in nonmarket responsibilities that can have sizable impacts on aggregate market productivity.
Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales
Materia
Ciencias Económicas
Child penalty
Part-time
Self-employment
Motherhood
SHARE data
Nivel de accesibilidad
acceso abierto
Condiciones de uso
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Repositorio
SEDICI (UNLP)
Institución
Universidad Nacional de La Plata
OAI Identificador
oai:sedici.unlp.edu.ar:10915/109397
Acceder
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repository_id_str 1329
network_name_str SEDICI (UNLP)
spelling Motherhood, labor market trajectories, and the allocation of talent: harmonized evidence on 29 countriesBerniell, InésBerniell, María LucilaMata, Dolores de laEdo, MaríaFawaz, YarineMachado, Matilde P.Marchionni, MarianaCiencias EconómicasChild penaltyPart-timeSelf-employmentMotherhoodSHARE dataIn this paper we assess whether changes in labor market decisions upon motherhood lead to potential inefficient allocations of talent. Using an event study approach with retrospective data drawn from SHARE for 29 European countries we show that motherhood effects go beyond the well studied effects of labor market participation decisions: the arrival of the first child substantially affects the uptaking of alternative modes of employment, such as part-time and self-employment, that are characterized by flexible or reduced work schedules but also lower pay on average. We also show that the size of labor market responses to motherhood are larger in societies with more conservative social-norms or with weak policies regarding work-life balance. To assess the effects of motherhood over the allocation of talent, we explore how labor market responses to parenthood vary by alternative measures of talent or ability. We find that all women, even those with the highest level of ability and abler than their husbands face large motherhood effects, while men show virtually no changes in the labor market when becoming fathers. We also find that mothers who become self-employed after the birth of the first child are those that are less entrepreneurial-able according to cognitive ability and personality traits shown to impair business survival. Overall, our results suggest relevant changes in the allocation of talent caused by gender differences in nonmarket responsibilities that can have sizable impacts on aggregate market productivity.Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales2020-11info:eu-repo/semantics/workingPaperinfo:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersionDocumento de trabajohttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_8042info:ar-repo/semantics/documentoDeTrabajoapplication/pdfhttp://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/109397spainfo:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/url/https://www.cedlas.econo.unlp.edu.ar/wp/no-270/info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/issn/1853-0168info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/hdl/10915/121663info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccesshttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)reponame:SEDICI (UNLP)instname:Universidad Nacional de La Platainstacron:UNLP2025-09-29T11:24:47Zoai:sedici.unlp.edu.ar:10915/109397Institucionalhttp://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/Universidad públicaNo correspondehttp://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/oai/snrdalira@sedici.unlp.edu.arArgentinaNo correspondeNo correspondeNo correspondeopendoar:13292025-09-29 11:24:47.473SEDICI (UNLP) - Universidad Nacional de La Platafalse
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Motherhood, labor market trajectories, and the allocation of talent: harmonized evidence on 29 countries
title Motherhood, labor market trajectories, and the allocation of talent: harmonized evidence on 29 countries
spellingShingle Motherhood, labor market trajectories, and the allocation of talent: harmonized evidence on 29 countries
Berniell, Inés
Ciencias Económicas
Child penalty
Part-time
Self-employment
Motherhood
SHARE data
title_short Motherhood, labor market trajectories, and the allocation of talent: harmonized evidence on 29 countries
title_full Motherhood, labor market trajectories, and the allocation of talent: harmonized evidence on 29 countries
title_fullStr Motherhood, labor market trajectories, and the allocation of talent: harmonized evidence on 29 countries
title_full_unstemmed Motherhood, labor market trajectories, and the allocation of talent: harmonized evidence on 29 countries
title_sort Motherhood, labor market trajectories, and the allocation of talent: harmonized evidence on 29 countries
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Berniell, Inés
Berniell, María Lucila
Mata, Dolores de la
Edo, María
Fawaz, Yarine
Machado, Matilde P.
Marchionni, Mariana
author Berniell, Inés
author_facet Berniell, Inés
Berniell, María Lucila
Mata, Dolores de la
Edo, María
Fawaz, Yarine
Machado, Matilde P.
Marchionni, Mariana
author_role author
author2 Berniell, María Lucila
Mata, Dolores de la
Edo, María
Fawaz, Yarine
Machado, Matilde P.
Marchionni, Mariana
author2_role author
author
author
author
author
author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Ciencias Económicas
Child penalty
Part-time
Self-employment
Motherhood
SHARE data
topic Ciencias Económicas
Child penalty
Part-time
Self-employment
Motherhood
SHARE data
dc.description.none.fl_txt_mv In this paper we assess whether changes in labor market decisions upon motherhood lead to potential inefficient allocations of talent. Using an event study approach with retrospective data drawn from SHARE for 29 European countries we show that motherhood effects go beyond the well studied effects of labor market participation decisions: the arrival of the first child substantially affects the uptaking of alternative modes of employment, such as part-time and self-employment, that are characterized by flexible or reduced work schedules but also lower pay on average. We also show that the size of labor market responses to motherhood are larger in societies with more conservative social-norms or with weak policies regarding work-life balance. To assess the effects of motherhood over the allocation of talent, we explore how labor market responses to parenthood vary by alternative measures of talent or ability. We find that all women, even those with the highest level of ability and abler than their husbands face large motherhood effects, while men show virtually no changes in the labor market when becoming fathers. We also find that mothers who become self-employed after the birth of the first child are those that are less entrepreneurial-able according to cognitive ability and personality traits shown to impair business survival. Overall, our results suggest relevant changes in the allocation of talent caused by gender differences in nonmarket responsibilities that can have sizable impacts on aggregate market productivity.
Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales
description In this paper we assess whether changes in labor market decisions upon motherhood lead to potential inefficient allocations of talent. Using an event study approach with retrospective data drawn from SHARE for 29 European countries we show that motherhood effects go beyond the well studied effects of labor market participation decisions: the arrival of the first child substantially affects the uptaking of alternative modes of employment, such as part-time and self-employment, that are characterized by flexible or reduced work schedules but also lower pay on average. We also show that the size of labor market responses to motherhood are larger in societies with more conservative social-norms or with weak policies regarding work-life balance. To assess the effects of motherhood over the allocation of talent, we explore how labor market responses to parenthood vary by alternative measures of talent or ability. We find that all women, even those with the highest level of ability and abler than their husbands face large motherhood effects, while men show virtually no changes in the labor market when becoming fathers. We also find that mothers who become self-employed after the birth of the first child are those that are less entrepreneurial-able according to cognitive ability and personality traits shown to impair business survival. Overall, our results suggest relevant changes in the allocation of talent caused by gender differences in nonmarket responsibilities that can have sizable impacts on aggregate market productivity.
publishDate 2020
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2020-11
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/workingPaper
info:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersion
Documento de trabajo
http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_8042
info:ar-repo/semantics/documentoDeTrabajo
format workingPaper
status_str submittedVersion
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/109397
url http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/109397
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv spa
language spa
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/url/https://www.cedlas.econo.unlp.edu.ar/wp/no-270/
info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/issn/1853-0168
info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/hdl/10915/121663
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
rights_invalid_str_mv http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:SEDICI (UNLP)
instname:Universidad Nacional de La Plata
instacron:UNLP
reponame_str SEDICI (UNLP)
collection SEDICI (UNLP)
instname_str Universidad Nacional de La Plata
instacron_str UNLP
institution UNLP
repository.name.fl_str_mv SEDICI (UNLP) - Universidad Nacional de La Plata
repository.mail.fl_str_mv alira@sedici.unlp.edu.ar
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