International differences in the family gap in pay: the role of labour market institutions

Arnaud Dupuy () and Daniel Fernandez-Kranz

Applied Economics, 2011, vol. 43, issue 4, pages 413-438

Abstract: Using the microdata for 35 countries over the period 1985 to 1994 and 1994 to 2002 we find that labour market institutions are traditionally associated with more compressed wage structures and a higher family gap. Our results indicate that these policies reduce the price effect of having children but aggravate the human capital loss due to motherhood. We also find evidence that policies that help women to continue in the same job after childbirth decrease the family gap. Of all the countries we study, mothers in Southern Europe suffer the biggest family gap and our analysis indicates that this is due to the bad combination of labour market policies in these countries. Our results are robust to specification changes and indicate that the main reason for mothers to lag behind other women in terms of earnings is the loss of accumulated job market experience caused by career breaks around childbirth.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations View citations in EconPapers (1) Track citations by RSS feed

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00036840902950580 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: International Differences in the Family Gap in Pay: the Role of Labor Market Institutions (2007)
Working Paper: International Differences in the Family Gap in Pay: The Role of Labor Market Institutions (2007)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:applec:v:43:y:2011:i:4:p:413-438

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/subscription.asp

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Economics is edited by Mark Taylor

More articles in Applied Economics from Taylor and Francis Journals
Series data maintained by Michael McNulty ().