The Motherhood Training Penalty

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

School of Government Working Papers from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella

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 “motherhood training penalty.” Before parenthood, full-time male and female workers exhibit similar on-the-job training trends, but their trajectories diverge afterward. In the first 1–3 years of parenthood, women are 17%–21% less likely to train, compared to a 1%–5% decline for men. Additional evidence suggests this gap reflects employers’ lower willingness to finance training for mothers, and that it is larger in countries with higher childcare costs and weaker government support for training.

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: 37 pages
Date: 2026-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lma
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:udt:wpgobi:wp_gob_2026_04

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