Parenthood and Productivity

Diogo Britto (), Caio De Holanda, Bruno Ferman, Alexandre Fonseca, Breno Sampaio () and Lucas Warwar
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Diogo Britto: Bocconi University
Caio De Holanda: University of California, Berkeley
Bruno Ferman: Sao Paulo School of Economics, FGV
Alexandre Fonseca: Federal Revenue of Brazil
Breno Sampaio: Universidade Federal de Pernambuco
Lucas Warwar: Stanford University

No 18658, IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER

Abstract: Does parenthood impair workers’ on-the-job productivity? We study this question and its implications for understanding the child penalties in employment observed for mothers. We focus on judges, a profession that helps overcome key empirical challenges: output can be measured precisely, it can be observed for all workers before and after childbirth because virtually no parent leaves the profession, and workloads are evenly distributed, limiting scope for selective task allocation. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find no evidence that mothers’ -- and fathers’ -- output declines during pregnancy or after they return from parental leave, and we can rule out moderate declines. We validate this result using a broad set of measures capturing both the quantity and quality of judicial work, and we document similar patterns for self-employed labor lawyers. Our findings show that motherhood need not reduce on-the-job productivity and suggest that, at least in some contexts, child penalties in employment may not be driven by lasting declines in on-the-job productivity.

Keywords: child penalty; productivity; gender gap (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J24 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-05
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