Marriage, Motherhood, and Wages

28 Pages Posted: 27 Jun 2007 Last revised: 30 Dec 2022

See all articles by Sanders Korenman

Sanders Korenman

City University of New York (CUNY) - School of Public Affairs; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

David Neumark

University of California, Irvine - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Date Written: October 1990

Abstract

We explore several problems in drawing causal inferences from cross-sectional relationships between marriage, motherhood, and wages. We find that heterogeneity leads to biased estimates of the "direct" effects of marriage and motherhood on wages (i.e., effects net of experience and tenure); first-difference estimates reveal no direct effect of marriage or motherhood on women's wages. We also find statistical evidence that experience and tenure nay be endogenous variables in wage equations; IV estimates suggest that both OLS cross-sectional and first-difference estimates understate the direct (negative) effect of children on wages.

Suggested Citation

Korenman, Sanders and Neumark, David, Marriage, Motherhood, and Wages (October 1990). NBER Working Paper No. w3473, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=987266

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