Navigating Motherhood: Endogenous Penalties and Career Choice

Sena Coskun, Husnu Dalgic and Yasemin Ozdemir

No 20872, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: Women strategically sort into "family-friendly" sectors characterized by lower returns to experience but also lower per-child penalties, before the birth of their first child. This pre-birth sorting represents an ex-ante career cost, a "sorting penalty" not captured by conventional measures. We build a heterogeneous agent model of career choice and fertility, incorporating both quality-quantity (Q-Q) and time-expenditure (T-E) trade-offs, to quantify this cost. Our central finding is that despite this sorting penalty being surprisingly small, it reveals an important mechanism: Women at the productivity margin are the switchers and use the Q-Q and T-E trade-offs as their primary, more powerful tools to navigate motherhood and career. Our findings highlight that frameworks excluding these trade-offs will overestimate the fertility responses and career costs associated with policies.

JEL-codes: E24 J13 J22 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-11
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