Patriarchy, parenthood and gender pay gap: evidence from Indian labor market

Abstract

This paper estimates the extent to which parenthood influences wage income of working mothers and fathers respectively. In this context we try to assess the    influence of family culture in explaining this gap using India Human Development Survey (IHDS) data for round one and round two (2004-05 and 2009-10). We argue that mothers from patriarchal family culture will work and earn less as compared to   fathers and this will sharpen the wage gap in India. Using OLS and Oaxaca-Blinder method of decomposition for mothers and non-mothers we find that children have significant negative influence on earning of working mothers as compared to married females. The Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition of wage measures significant wage gap of 0.41 between married female without kid and mothers with one child. 28 percent of this gap is unexplained. On the other hand, fathers are earning significantly more than married male coworkers and the gap is 0.33 and major portion of this is     explained, which conforms that males become more productive after becoming father as breadwinners for the family and this fatherhood fetches more return for male. It appears that motherhood entails a wage ‘penalty’ in the labor market and more   importantly fatherhood is associated with a ‘bonus’ in terms of higher wage premium indicating differential impact of parenthood within a family.