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The Labor Market Returns to Delaying Pregnancy

Yana Gallen
ZOOM Webinar
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The Labor Market Returns to Delaying Pregnancy

Jana Gallen (University of Chicago)

You may follow the seminar at the following link.

ABSTRACT:

We study the extent to which delaying pregnancy mitigates the impact of children on women’s labor market outcomes. We leverage quasi-random variation in the timing of pregnancy in a setting where women intend to delay having children by using long acting reversible contraceptives. While most women successfully delay pregnancy, some have unplanned pregnancies. Analyzing linked health and labor market data from Sweden, we find that unplanned pregnancies halt women’s career progression resulting in income losses of 20% by five years after the unplanned pregnancy. Using pregnancy as an instrument for birth in a dynamic treatment effect framework, the detrimental effects of unplanned children are larger for younger women and women enrolled in education. This indicates that unplanned first births are particularly disruptive early on when women are investing in their human capital. In contrast, we find smaller impacts of unplanned pregnancies for women who are already mothers. When we estimate the impact of first births identified from quasi-random success of fertilization procedures, we likewise find smaller impacts of children among women who intend to get pregnant.

BIO:

Yana Gallen is an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. She received a PhD in economics from Northwestern University in 2016. She is a labor economist studying the gender wage gap. Her research focuses on understanding the relationship between motherhood and gender differences in labor market outcomes. Her research combines quasi-experimental methods with rich administrative and survey data from Denmark, Sweden, and the United States to examine questions such as how unplanned births disrupt careers, how mentoring and career advice differ by gender, and how access to contraception and reproductive health policy affects long-term economic decisions.