In this project** MiSoC Co-I Susan Harkness** will assess how parenthood affects the economic well-being of families, particularly for those mothers who are single at the time of birth or who separated later. Specifically, the research will examine how earnings penalties to motherhood combine with the cost of partner absence to affect single mothers’ economic well-being.
In a recent study focused on the US, Harkness uses longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and fixed-effect models with individual-specific slopes to show that the transition to parenthood is as strongly linked to reduced income as the dissolution of marriage. She then explores whether penalties vary between those who become a single mother as a result of the birth of a first child and those who separate from marriage after children are born. Comparing how different routes to single motherhood affect economic outcomes, the analysis reveals that previously married mothers face larger income penalties than those who were single when their first child was born because they see larger declines in their own earnings following childbirth. The results illustrate how parenthood shapes the earnings and income prospects of women who become single mothers and highlights the importance of reducing gender inequalities in the labour market if single mothers’ economic position is to be improved.
The next stage of the project will compare differences between the US, UK and Germany. It is hypothesised that, because reductions in labour supply and wage gaps are larger in the UK and Germany than in the US (in part because of the frequency of part time work) that the motherhood earnings penalty will play a substantial part in affecting the economic prospects of those who become single mothers, despite the relative generosity of welfare payments in European countries.