American Rural-Urban Differences in Motherhood Wage Penalties

Although a rich body of literature has studied variances in motherhood wage penalties, few studies have directly explored the potential rural-urban differences in motherhood wage penalties. Since nearly 16.5 percent of women... [ view full abstract ]

Although a rich body of literature has studied variances in motherhood wage penalties, few studies have directly explored the potential rural-urban differences in motherhood wage penalties. Since nearly 16.5 percent of women live in rural areas,  the well-being of rural working mothers should not be ignored given the changing economic and social environments in rural places. This paper uses fixed-effects models to examine whether there are rural-urban differences in motherhood wage penalties with data from National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79). The results show that rural women experience a smaller motherhood wage penalty than urban women, while the rural-urban differences in motherhood wage penalties are mainly concentrated on mothers with more than two children. Family factors, human capital factors, as well as work environments all contribute to the rural-urban gap in motherhood wage penalties in essential ways.