The Motherhood Training Penalty

Xiao Ma, Alejandro Nakab, Camila Navajas-Ahumada and Daniela Vidart

No 2025-04, Working papers from University of Connecticut, Department of Economics

Abstract: Women experience slower wage growth than men over their lifetimes, a gap often attributed to the “motherhood wage penalty,” as childbearing reduces earnings. This paper links this penalty to differences in human capital using a pseudo-event study of first childbirth in Europe to document a “mother-hood training penalty.” Before parenthood, full-time male and female work-ers exhibit similar on-the-job training trends, but their trajectories diverge afterward. In the first 1–3 years of parenthood, women are 17%–22% less likely to train, compared to a 3%–8% decline for men. Additional evidence suggests this gap reflects employers’ lower willingness to finance training for mothers.

Keywords: On-the-Job Training; Human Capital Accumulation; Lifecycle Wage Growth; Gender Gaps (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J24 M53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2025-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-gen and nep-lma
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://media.economics.uconn.edu/working/2025-04.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uct:uconnp:2025-04

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working papers from University of Connecticut, Department of Economics University of Connecticut 365 Fairfield Way, Unit 1063 Storrs, CT 06269-1063. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mark McConnel ().