The impact of childbirth on gender wage gap: evidence from China

China's evolving fertility policies have renewed academic attention to the impact of childbirth in the labor market. Whether the first and second birth transitions will lead to different changes in women's and men's wages is crucial for understanding the relationship between fertility behavior and gender pay gap.

Based on the data of the four waves of China Household Finance Survey in 2013, 2015, 2017 and 2019, this study examines the impact of the first and second birth transitions on wages. The study uses a difference-in-differences framework and combines methods such as Callaway-Sant'Anna estimator, event study analysis, selection correction, and sensitivity tests.

The estimation results show a motherhood wage penalty and a fatherhood wage premium in the labor market, with larger wage changes for the second birth transition than for the first. Family support and digital finance appear to moderate these effects, and both help to reduce the motherhood wage penalty. Factors such as changes in working hours, employment interruption, and career progression may help explain the gender divergence in wages. Further analysis shows that the estimated wage effects are generally larger in absolute terms among workers outside the work unit system and those with non-establishment status. In the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, the observed individual characteristics can narrow the average gender wage gap, while the unexplained part widens it.

The findings indicate that childbirth-related wage differences are strongly gendered and become more pronounced around the second birth transition.