“The Motherhood Wage Gap for Women in the United States: The Importance of College and Fertility Delay”

One of the stylized facts from the past 30 years has been the declining rate of first births before age 30 for all women and the increase rate of first births after age 30 among women with four-year college degrees (Steven P. Martin, Demography, 37(4), 523–533, 2000). What are some of the factors behind womens decision to postpone their childbearing? We hypothesize that the wage difference often observed between like-educated mothers and non-mothers (Jane Waldfogel, Journal of Labor Economics, 16, 505–545, 1998a; Journal of Economic Perspectives 12(1) 137–156, 1998b) may be affected by the postponement of childbearing until after careers are fully established. Hence, we focus on college-educated women because they are typically more career-oriented than their non-college educated counterparts and also the group most often observed postponing maternity. We use individual-level data on women from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) in order to control for individual-level unobserved heterogeneity as well as human capital characteristics, such as actual work experience, in our empirical analysis. We estimate wage equations, first producing base-line results to compare to the existing literature. Then, we expand the basic wage equation model to address fundamental econometric issues and the education/fertility issue at hand. Our empirical findings are two-fold. First, we find that college-educated mothers do not experience a motherhood wage penalty at all. In fact, they enjoy a wage boost when compared to college-educated childless women. Second, fertility delay enhances this wage boost even further. Our results provide an explanation for the observed postponement of maternity for educated women. We argue that the wage boost experienced by college-educated mothers may be the result of their search for family–friendly work environments, which, in turn, yields job matches with more female-friendly firms offering greater opportunities for advancement.JEL Codes: J13 and J3     

The Effect of a Family Policy Reform on Mother’s Pay: A Natural Experiment Approach

All parents in Norway with children aged one to three, who do not attend publicly subsidised day care, are entitled to a cash-for-care (CFC) subsidy. Studies have shown that the reform has reduced mothers labour supply. In this paper we analyse wage effects of the reform. We put forward a framework for evaluating reforms when reforms are uniformly and equally accessible nation-wide. First, running a simple Difference in differences (DD) analysis, results suggest that the CFC reform has reduced the mothers wages. However, after controlling for the age of the child effect, by running a triple difference approach, we no longer find any evidence of negative wage effects.This revised version was published online in May 2005 with corrections to the authors name and to the heading of table A2.     

求职过程的社会网络模型：检验关系效应假设

本文依据2009年八城市求职网调查数据,区别关系强度和关系资源两种不同的测量,分析这两种测量对入职收入的效应后发现：关系强度与关系资源统计相关,但不能互替。强关系往往带来人情资源,弱关系往往带来信息资源。经济改革前后,信息资源对入职收入均无显著影响,直到改革中期,特别是进入世贸组织后,信息资源才开始对收入产生提升作用。人情资源的收入效应改革前后一直很大,但是进入世贸组织之后,开始受到一定程度的抑制。市场转型过程中,社会网络的收入效应的总趋势是：改革前和改革初,人情资源效应大于信息资源效应,但在改革中期和加入世贸组织之后,前者在减弱,后者在增强。文章最后认为,市场竞争程度、体制不确定性程度和关系拥挤程度是造成这一现象的三大宏观要素,将是学术研究和政策调整的重点所在。     

中国的刘易斯转折点到来了吗?——基于农业部门工资决定的视角

文章从刘易斯增长模型的经典著作入手,廓清刘易斯模型的关键假说,以农业部门工资决定原则变化的独特视角,即农业部门工资和劳动边际生产率的关系研究中国的刘易斯转折点。研究发现:中国经济整体上已经到达刘易斯第一转折点,但是研究还发现经济发展中存在不平衡性,东部发达地区已经接近刘易斯第二转折点(即商业化点),中西部大部分地区已经越过刘易斯第一转折点(即短缺点),西部少数欠发达地区还没有到达刘易斯第一转折点。     

Testing Fair Wage Theory

Fairness considerations often are invoked to explain wage differences that appear unrelated to worker characteristics or job conditions, but non-experimental tests of fair wage models are rare because market data rarely permit researchers to measure individual workers’ productivity and its value. We use data from the baseball labor market to address this problem, and find no support for fair wage theory. We do find, however, that fairness premia can be illusory: Wages appear to incorporate fairness premia in regressions that control for variation in individuals’ physical output, but such premia evaporate when the value of that output is held constant.

西藏农牧民进城务工的价值引领与法律制度保障

西藏农牧民进城务工有增长之势.职业选择范围窄、劳务工资较低、生活素质较差等问题,折射出西藏农牧民工在劳动技能、职业素质、竞争能力等方面与当下市场经济要求存在一定距离.对此,既要引领农牧民工重视自身素质提高、增强竞争意识,自觉参与劳动技能教育与培训,更要敦促政府完善地方法规,从法律制度上保障各地县的农牧民接受劳动技能培训,建立提升农牧民参与现代化城市建设能力、提高农牧民物质生活的长效机制.     

东中西部地区农村居民收入比较研究

对我国东中西部地区农村居民人均纯收入总量及来源结构进行分析后发现,1999年中央实施西部大开发战略以来,东中西部地区之间的差距不仅没有缩小,反而呈扩大之势。从战略的高度讲,缩小区域农村之间差距主要应采取如下一些对策:以财政投资为主,着力普及农村十二年义务教育,重点发展农村职业技术教育;以“丰”字型的城市经济发展战略为轴心,加快农村剩余劳动力向城市转移的步伐;以中央财政为主,有计划分步骤地在中西部地区建立社会保障制度;以农业产业化为龙头,加快中西部地区非农产业发展;以增加农民收入为切入点,深化中西部地区农村税费改革;以统筹城乡发展为基调,走城乡协调发展的道路。     

Economic conditions,marital status,and the timing of first births: Results for whites and blacks

Relatively little is known about the effects of aggregate economic conditions on first-birth timing. In this paper, we argue that aggregate economic conditions are important macrolevel forces driving the transition to parenthood. We develop and test a causal model, separately by race, in which economic conditions influence both marital status and first-birth timing. Our results indicate that economic conditions are significant predictors of both outcomes, with economic conditions for females having effects different from those for males. A particularly noteworthy finding is that favorable wage trajectories for females lead to a decreased likelihood of being married and slower birth timing (a finding opposite to that predicted on the basis of opportunity costs). For blacks, the majority of the effects of economic conditions on the transition to parenthood are direct, while for whites a significant proportion of effects are indirect through marital status.     

A call for greater attention to the role of employers in developing,transforming, and implementing family policies

The authors contend that employer-initiated workplace policies should be considered as part of the patchwork that constitutes U.S. family policy. To provide a background, historical evidence of employer-initiated policies intentionally used as family policies is summarized. The view is then explicated that failure to take economic conditions and workplace policies into account may lead to faulty conclusions about the reasons for major changes in family life. The current status of selected employer-initiated workplace policies and recent trends is summarized. Next, some of the dilemmas inherent in considering connections between government- and employer-initiated policies are identified. Finally, suggestions for future directions are offered. The article should be considered with the following caveat in mind: the focus is exclusively on the influence of policies on families, but families are not merely reactive. She received her Ph.D. and M.B.A. from The Pennsylvania State University. Her research interests center on relationships between jobs and family life, with emphasis on work-family relationships in small businesses, and on adult workers as developing individuals. Her research interests focus on the intersection of social problems and family problems, including families and work, coping with unemployment, and adult children as caregivers of dependent parents. She received her Ph.D. from Purdue University.