Motherhood and women’s earnings in Anglo-American, Continental European, and Nordic countries

Abstract

In this paper, we make cross-national comparisons of the earnings of women with children relative to
both childless women and to men. Using LIS microdata from eight industrialized countries, we
calculate differentials in long-term earnings between women with children, women without children,
and men for the low-educated, medium-educated, and high-educated in each country. We find that for
the most part our countries cluster into three groups, with mothers in the Continental European group
experiencing the largest earnings differentials, mothers in the Nordic group experiencing the smallest,
and mothers in the Anglo-American countries occupying the middle position.