Open AccessThe impact of postponing motherhood on women's income in Brazil
Author(s) -
Juliana Lopes de Andrade,
Marina Silva da Cunha
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
economia aplicada/economia aplicada
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.116
H-Index - 10
eISSN - 1980-5330
pISSN - 1413-8050
DOI - 10.11606/1980-5330/ea165870
Subject(s) - postponement , earnings , wage , economics , demographic economics , labour economics , accounting , operations management
This paper investigates the impact of the postponement of motherhood on women’s earnings and gender gap in Brazilian labor market, based on data from Brazilian National Health Survey of 2013. Using the Heckman (1979) approach, the results suggest that postponing motherhood has a positive impact of 1.55% on earnings each year of postponement. By comparing men and women, the results suggest that being a woman generates a wage penalty of approximately 22%, but the postponing of motherhood can eliminate that gender gap, especially for those who are white, yellow, and higher educated.