Endogenous Maternity Allowances as Exemplified by Academic Promotion Standards

Heinrich Ursprung

No 7490, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: I model the strategic interaction between scientists aiming for promotion and a research institution that seeks a highly productive faculty by setting a maternity allowance in the form of a minimum promotion standard. The model shows that maternity allowances need not derive from moral justice arguments but can emerge endogenously from efficiency considerations. The underlying mechanism rests on the assumption that exceptionally productive female professionals are also exceptionally productive if they choose to become mothers. Even though motherhood temporarily handicaps their productivity, it is exactly this cost of motherhood that signals the mothers’ intrinsic high productivity. I explicitly refer to the academic labor market and use empirical evidence from academia to justify the model’s specification, but the conclusions carry over to promotion decisions at the executive level in most professional lines of occupation.

Keywords: maternity; job market signaling; fertility; research productivity; highly skilled labor; economics of science; scientometrics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 D82 J13 J16 M14 M51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-sog
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Journal Article: Endogenous maternity allowances as exemplified by academic promotion standards (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7490

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