Inside the Black Box of Child Penalties: Unpaid Work and Household Structure
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About the talk:
The adverse effects of motherhood on market work are a persistent source of gender inequality. Using high-frequency data from Mexico, we unveil the dynamics of households' time budgets around childbirth. Mothers face significant impacts in their paid and unpaid work patterns, with increases in unpaid hours more than compensating for decreased labor supply. Contrary to prior studies assuming mothers' work patterns remain consistent during pregnancy, we observe shifts beginning at this stage. Other women in the household, including girls, adjust their time allocation while men (and boys) remain unaffected, perpetuating gender roles. Through the participation of female family members in childcare, family structure emerges as a pivotal factor determining parental time allocation, disproportionately benefitting men. Back-of-the-envelope estimates suggest that the cost of outsourcing to the market the extra burden women undertake after childbirth amounts to one-third of household income.
About the speaker:
Elia de la Cruz Toledo-He, MPA, Ph.D., is a research associate at Loyola Marymount University who performs policy evaluations that focus on vulnerable populations. De la Cruz has worked as a consultant for the World Bank and for UNICEF on various topics that include education policies and adolescent empowerment interventions. She was a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University, where she studied the effects of nonresident fathers’ child support on the socioemotional well-being of children, the economic valuation of health-related interventions for adolescents, and the influence of neighborhood context on children’s behavioral, cognitive and health trajectories. She holds a Ph.D. in social policy and policy analysis and a master of arts in public administration from Columbia University.
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