María Alexandra Castellanos (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid)

Immigration, Parenthood and Child Penalties

María Alexandra Castellanos
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Abstract

I analyse the impact of an expansion of household services availability on child penalties. The sudden supply shock in domestic and childcare services stemming from the Spanish migration boom provides a unique quasi-experimental setting to examine whether the availability of affordable substitutes for household production can reduce gender disparities in the labour market and the penalties associated with parenthood. Using a novel individual-level measure of child penalty and a rich matched employer-employee administrative dataset, I combine a difference-in-differences strategy with an instrumental variable design. I find that the expansion of domestic services driven by the inflow of female immigrant workers reduced the gender gap associated with child penalties for native workers. The effect is persistent over time and more pronounced for relatively lower-skilled native women, suggesting that affordable substitutes for household production can help not only to alleviate gender gaps but also to reduce within-gender inequality. 

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