Labor of Love: Gender and Wage Dynamics Across the Stages of Life

Shurui Li ()
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Shurui Li: Department of Economics, Umeå University, Postal: Department of Economics, Umeå University, S 901 87 Umeå, Sweden, https://www.umu.se/handelshogskolan/

No 1042, Umeå Economic Studies from Umeå University, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper examines how fertility events contribute to the gender pay gap in a framework that integrates a life-cycle model with a search and matching model featuring endogenous job matching and wage bargaining. The model represents four fertility-related life-cycle stages, each of which is associated with distinct labor market behaviors and constraints. This paper highlights the role of first-birth timing, parental leave, and job amenity preferences in shaping gender gaps in human capital accumulation and career trajectories. Counterfactual simulations show that delaying the first birth and shortening parental leave substantially improve women’s trajectories of wages and promotions. Equalizing amenity preferences between genders, though not efficiency-enhancing, significantly raises women’s representation in high-paying jobs and promotes greater structural equality in the labor market. The framework provides a structural lens to assess how demographic shocks interact with search frictions and amenity preferences to produce enduring gender gaps in the labor market.

Keywords: parental leave; gender gap; job amenity; human capital; search and matching (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 J13 J16 J24 J64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2026-01-19
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge, nep-gen and nep-lma
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