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  3. 2026
  4. Program
  5. (In)Fertility and Gender Inequality
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(In)Fertility and Gender Inequality

Paper Session

Monday, Jan. 5, 2026 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM (EST)

Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Room 306
Hosted By: Econometric Society
  • Chair: Henrik Jacobsen Kleven, Princeton University

The Labor Market Returns to Delaying Pregnancy

Yana Gallen
,
University of Chicago
Juanna S. Joensen
,
University of Chicago
Eva Rye Johansen
,
Aarhus University
Gregory Veramendi
,
University of London

Abstract

We study the extent to which delaying pregnancy mitigates the impact of children on women’s labor market outcomes. We leverage quasi-random variation in the timing of pregnancy in a setting where women intend to delay having children by using long-acting reversible contraceptives. While most women successfully delay pregnancy, some have unplanned pregnancies. Analyzing linked health and labor market data from Sweden, we find that unplanned pregnancies halt women’s career progression resulting in income losses of 20% by five years after the unplanned pregnancy. Using pregnancy as an instrument for birth in a dynamic treatment e˙ect framework, the detrimental e˙ects of unplanned children are larger for younger women and women enrolled in education. This indicates that unplanned first births are particularly disruptive early on when women are investing in their human capital. In contrast, we find smaller impacts of unplanned pregnancies for women who are already mothers. When we estimate the impact of first births identified from quasi-random success of fertilization procedures, we likewise find smaller impacts of children among women who intend to get pregnant. Taken together, our results suggest that the value of e˙ective contraceptives is highest for women without children, and women can reduce the large labor market costs of having their first child by timing pregnancy.

Gender Without Children

Camille Landais
,
London School of Economics
Petter Lundborg
,
Lund University
Tatiana Pazem
,
London School of Economics
Erik Plug
,
University of Amsterdam
Johan Vikstrom
,
Uppsala

Abstract

What would the lives of women look like if they knew from an early age that they would not have children? Would they make different choices about human capital or early career investments? Would they behave differently in the marriage market? Would they fare better in the labor market? In this paper, we follow 152 women diagnosed with the Mayer-Rokitanski-Kuster-Hauser (MRKH) type I syndrome. This congenital condition, diagnosed at puberty, is characterised by the absence of the uterus in otherwise phenotypically normal 46, XX females. Using granular health registries matched with administrative data from Sweden, we confirm that MRKH is not associated with worse health, nor with differential pre-diagnosis characteristics, and that it has a large negative impact on the probability to ever live with a child. Relative to women from the general population, women with the condition have better educational outcomes, tend to marry and divorce at the same rate, but mate with older men, and hold significantly more progressive beliefs regarding gender roles. The condition has also very large positive effects on earnings and employment. Dynamics reveal that most of this positive effect emerges around the arrival of children in women in the general population, with little difference before. We also find that women with MRKH perform as well as men in the labor market in the long run. Results confirm that "child penalties"" on the labor market trajectories of women are large and persistent and that they explain the bulk of the remaining gender gap."

Measuring Labor Market Dynamics Around Childbirth: The Role of Parental Leave

Abigail Adams
,
Northwestern University
Mathias Fjællegaard Jensen
,
University of Oxford
Barbara Petrongolo
,
University of Oxford

Abstract

We develop new facts on relationships between the timing and spacing of births, parental leave take-up, and labor market outcomes using Danish administrative data. We document substantial heterogeneity in age at first birth across maternal skill levels. Average spacing of pregnancies is also tighter for highly skilled mothers, resulting in higher fertility levels and time on parental leave soon after first birth. We estimate event studies by skill level and find that much of child penalties in earnings and participation after first birth can be explained by incapacitation effects from parental leave around subsequent births, especially for the highly educated.

Reconciling Estimates of the Long-Term Earnings Effect of Fertility

Simon Bensnes
,
Frisch Centre for Economic Research
Ingrid Huitfeldt
,
BI Norwegian Business School
Edwin Leuven
,
University of Oslo

Abstract

This paper reconciles different approaches to estimating the labor market ef-fects of children. Combining elements from event study and instrumental variable estimators we find that while both approaches estimate a 15 percent child penalty, they differ in what drives this gap. The standard event study attributes the penalty primarily to reduced maternal earnings, but our results suggest maternal changes account for less than half. We show that women time fertility as their earnings profile flattens, causing the event study to overestimate the maternal penalty. This finding has broader implications for event-study designs, as pre-trends may be uninformative about selection bias.

Discussant(s)
Ilyana Kuziemko
,
Princeton University
JEL Classifications
  • J3 - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs