The Motherhood Penalty in Cross-National Perspective: The Importance of Work-Family Policies and Cultural Attitudes

Mothers’ employment and earnings partly depend on social policies and cultural norms supporting women’s paid and unpaid work. Previous research suggests that work–family policies are deeply shaped by their cultural context. We examine country variation in the associations between motherhood and earnings, in cultural attitudes surrounding women’s employment, and in child-care and parental leave policies. We model how cultural attitudes moderate the impact of policies on women’s earnings across countries. Parental leaves and public childcare are associated with higher earnings for mothers when cultural support for maternal employment is high, but have less positive or even negative relationships with earnings where cultural attitudes support the male breadwinner/female caregiver model.