Effect of Remote Work on the Child Penalty: Evidence from the United States

Ahmet Gulek and Christina Langer

No 26162, RFBerlin Discussion Paper Series from ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin (RFBerlin)

Abstract: We study the effect of the post-COVID expansion of remote work on the child penalty. Our empirical design proceeds in three steps: using pseudo-panels to estimate child penalties across occupations, exploiting cross-occupational variation in remote work adoption, and using synthetic controls to adjust for differential pre-COVID trajectories. Remote work reduces the hours penalty for mothers: each percentage point increase in an occupation's remote work share raises mothers' hours worked by 0.23%, eliminating one-sixth of the baseline motherhood penalty for the average remote occupation. We find no effects on employment, income, or wages for mothers, and no average effects on men.

Keywords: Working from Home; Child Penalty; Gender Inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J16 J22 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-06
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:crm:wpaper:26162

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