Motherhood and the Allocation of Talent

Inés Berniell, Lucila Berniell, Dolores de la Mata, María Edo, Yarine Fawaz, Matilde Machado () and Mariana Marchionni

No 14491, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: In this paper we show that motherhood triggers changes in the allocation of talent in the labor market besides the well-known effects on gender gaps in employment and earnings. We use an event study approach with retrospective data for 29 countries drawn from SHARE to assess the labor market responses to motherhood across groups with different educational attainment, math ability by the age of 10, and personality traits. We find that while even the most talented women— both in absolute terms and relative to their husbands—leave the labor market or uptake part-time jobs after the birth of the first child, all men, including the least talented, stay employed. We also find that motherhood induces a negative selection of talents into self-employment. Overall, our results suggest relevant changes in the allocation of talent caused by gender differences in nonmarket responsibilities that can have sizable impacts on aggregate market productivity. We also show that the size of labor market responses to motherhood are larger in societies with more conservative social-norms or with weaker policies regarding work-life balance.

Keywords: child penalty; part-time; self-employment; motherhood; allocation of Talent (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J16 J22 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2021-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-lma and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Motherhood and the Allocation of Talent (2021)
Working Paper: Motherhood and the Allocation of Talent (2020)
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