Motherhood on Campus: Timing Childbirth during University Studies

Nicoline Josephine Bach, Astrid Würtz Rasmussen () and Nina Smith ()
Additional contact information
Nicoline Josephine Bach: VIVE - The Danish Centre for Social Science Research
Astrid Würtz Rasmussen: Aarhus University
Nina Smith: Aarhus University

No 17603, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between the timing of childbirth and the motherhood penalty among high-skilled Danish women. Earlier studies typically find that delaying first childbirth increases female earnings. However, postponing the first birth may also have negative fertility consequences, as it often leads to greater difficulties in conceiving. If women have their first childbirth early, before entering the labor market, this can potentially result in both positive and negative effects on their labor market outcomes. Positive effects may arise if student-mothers signal to employers that they will take up less future maternity and parental leave once they enter the labor market. Negative effects may occur if student-mothers face a delayed entry into the labor market or if they signal a preference for higher fertility compared to students without children. Using a sibling fixed effects design, we find that student-mothers have higher drop-out rates than non-student-mothers at both universities and university colleges. However, for those women completing their education, student-mothers from university colleges experience a considerably higher growth rate in earnings after labor market entry compared to non-student-mothers, and by the age of 40, they have surpassed non-student-mothers in earnings. In contrast, university student-mothers do not fully catch up with non-student-mothers by age 40, although they, on average, enter the labor market at a higher earnings level compared to non-student-mothers.

Keywords: wage differentials; female wages; parental leave; signaling; motherhood penalty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D82 J13 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 62 pages
Date: 2025-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-inv and nep-lab
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp17603.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17603

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().