Specialization Then and Now: Marriage, Children, and the Gender Earnings Gap across Cohorts
比较了1936至1985年间出生队列的性别收入差距与婚姻、子女状况的关联变化，检验贝克尔家庭专业化分工模型对解释跨代性别差距的适用性。
In this paper, we examine the evolution of the gender gap associated with marriage and parental status, comparing cohorts born between 1936 and 1985. The model of household specialization and division of labor introduced by Becker posits that when forming households, couples will exploit the gains from trade by having one spouse specialize in market work while the other specializes in household work. Given the historical advantage of men in the labor market, the model predicts specialization by gender and therefore an earnings advantage for married men and an earnings disadvantage for married women. Is this model of specialization useful for understanding the evolution of the gender gap across generations of women. And what about children? Academic papers have shown that wages of mothers are significantly lower than those of non-mothers with similar human capital characteristics. We do not attempt to build a structural model here, but rather document how changing associations between marriage and earnings, and between children and earnings, have contributed to the gender gap in an “accounting” sense.