The gender pay gap is frequently attributed, at least in part, to the"motherhood penalty" or the drop in women's salaries after they become mothers. However, newThe new study followed women during in vitro fertilization treatments and for up to 25 years afterward. IVF is a medical intervention designed to help infertile couples become pregnant and conceive children.
The researchers also tracked the pay trajectories of male partners involved in the IVF process and, as expected, found no differences in short or long-term pay between those who fathered children and those who did not. Previous research has found that fathers suffer no setbacks in pay when they have children, and some even earn more, often referred to as the
Others who have studied the effect of children on women’s lifetime earnings by looking at snapshots of census data found it depended on a few variables. Onenoted that the wage penalty persists for the mother’s whole life only for women who have three or more children. Nobel Laureate economist Claudiathat the motherhood penalty decreased the most for less educated moms as their children grow up. None have previously shown a child premium in pay as the study on IVF patients did.