The Family Gap for Young Women in the United States and Britain: Can Maternity Leave Make a Difference?

Jane Waldfogel

Journal of Labor Economics, 1998, vol. 16, issue 3, 505-45

Abstract: In the United States and Britain, there is a 'family gap' between the wages of mothers and other women. Differential returns to marital and parental status explain 40-50 percent of the gender gap. Another 30-40 percent is explained by women's lower levels of work experience and lower returns to experience. Taking advantage of 'quasi experiments' in job-protected maternity leave in the United States and Britain, this article finds that women who had leave coverage and returned to work after childbirth received a wage premium that offset the negative wage effects of children. Copyright 1998 by University of Chicago Press.

Date: 1998
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