Sacrificing their Careers for their Families? An Analysis of the Family Pay Penalty in Europe

This paper examines the extent of and the mechanisms behind the penalty to motherhood in six European countries. Each country provides different levels of support for maternal employment allowing us to determine institutional effects on labour market outcome. While mothers tend to earn less than non-mothers, the penalty to motherhood is considerably lower in countries with policy support for working mothers. The paper establishes the United Kingdom and West Germany to have the least policy support for working mothers as well as the largest penalties to motherhood

Do Satisfactory Working Conditions Contribute to Explaining Earning Differentials in Italy? A Panel Data Approach

The aim of the present paper is to analyse the wage differentials associated with non-pecuniary working conditions using objective and subjective data. In some situations a worker can be compensated for unsatisfactory working conditions via a higher wage; conversely, in the presence of segmented labor markets, higher wages can be associated with favorable non-monetary working conditions. Moreover, a positive correlation between wages and satisfactory working conditions exists when there is efficient union bargaining regarding both wages and working conditions. In the present study, we estimate a wage equation with variables that capture workers' subjective views regarding their current non-pecuniary working conditions, allowing for unobserved individual heterogeneity. Our results reveal a positive wage differential associated with satisfactory non-pecuniary working conditions. This result supports the segmentation labor market hypothesis. The focus of the study is on Italian workers, but we compare the core results the those obtained for other Mediterranean countries. Copyright 2007 The Author. Journal compilation CEIS, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2007.

Visibility in the workplace: still an essential ingredient for career success?

This article explores the extent to which a variety of different absences from the workplace affect perceptions of employee commitment and loyalty, and ultimately, how this ‘temporary invisibility’ might affect career success. Data were derived from 40 interviews (12 women and 28 men) in a public sector agency in Australia. Findings reveal that absences attract substantial career penalties for many employees, not only in relation to gendered flexible work options such as part-time employment and parental leave, but also traditionally uncontested entitlements such as annual and long service leave

Family Friendly Policies: Helping Mothers Make Ends Meet

This paper examines how family friendly policies affect mothers' wages. Standard economic theory predicts that workers who desire family friendly policies would accept lower wages, all else equal. However, in the US labor market, the workers who have access to these policies tend to be in the higher-prestige and higher-earning occupations. This study examines the effects on wages of having had access to maternity leave and the ability to control one's schedule, using the Survey of Income and Program Participation. The present-day wages of mothers who were working prior to the birth of their first child and received pay during their maternity leave are 9 percent higher compared to other mothers, controlling for other personal and job-related characteristics. Mothers who report working their current schedule because it helps them address their caring responsibilities—child care, elder care, or care for a sick family member—do not suffer a wage penalty as a result.maternity leave, workplace flexibility, wages,

“Family-Friendly” Fringe Benefits and the Gender Wage Gap

Fringe benefits, Gender wage gap, Compensating wage differentials, National longitudinal study of youth,