The Parity Penalty in Life Course Perspective: Motherhood and Occupational Status in 13 European Countries. (October 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Abendroth, Anja-Kristin; Huffman, Matt L.; Treas, Judith
• Is Part Of: American sociological review. Volume 79:Number 5(2014:Oct.)
• Page Start: 993
• Page End: 1014
• Publication Date: 2014-10
• Subjects: motherhood penalty -- occupational status -- state policies -- country comparative; Sociology -- Periodicals; Social history -- Periodicals; 301
• DOI: 10.1177/0003122414545986
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0003-1224

Abstract

Research documents a wage penalty for mothers compared to childless women. We demonstrate there is also an occupational status penalty to motherhood. Interrogating supply- and demand-side explanations of the motherhood penalty from the life course perspective, we formulate and test original hypotheses about the short-term and long-run career implications of parity-specific births. We analyze longitudinal data from the European Community and Household Panel for 13 European countries and eight time points between 1994 and 2001. Our fixed-effects models show that status losses for a first birth are not just short-term but accumulate over the career. The timing of a birth in a woman's life course matters only for older women, who experience a significant penalty to third births. Although the personal strategies that women use to minimize the career costs of motherhood (e.g., having only one child) prove ineffective, our cross-national evidence shows that public policies are linked to the motherhood penalty in occupational status.