Parenthood and the Gender Gap in Pay

We compare the income and wage trajectories of women to those of their male partners before and after parenthood. Focusing on the within-couple gap allows us to control for both observed and unobserved attributes of the spouse and to estimate both short- and long-term effects of entering parenthood. We find that 15 years after the first child has been born, the male-female gender gaps in income and wages have increased by 32 and 10 percentage points, respectively. In line with a collective labor supply model, the magnitude of these effects depends on counterfactual relative incomes or wages within the family.