Using data from social security records and an event study approach, we estimate the child penalty in Spain, looking at disparities for women and men across different labor outcomes following the birth of the first child. Our findings show that, the year after the first child is born, mothers’ annual earnings drop by 11% while men’s remain unchanged. The gender gap is even larger 10 years after birth. Our estimate of the long-run child penalty in earnings equals 28%, similar to those found for Denmark, Finland, Sweden or the USA. In addition, we identify channels that may drive this phenomenon, including reductions in working days and shifts to part-time or fixed-term contracts. Finally, we provide evidence of heterogeneous responses in earnings and labor market participation by educational level: college-educated women react to motherhood more on the intensive margin (working part-time), while non-college-educated women are relatively more likely to do so in the extensive margin (working fewer days).

使用来自社会保障记录的数据和事件研究方法，我们估计了西班牙的儿童惩罚，研究了第一个孩子出生后女性和男性在不同劳动成果方面的差异。我们的研究结果表明，在第一个孩子出生后的第二年，母亲的年收入下降了 11%，而男性则保持不变。出生10年后性别差距更大。我们对收入中长期儿童惩罚的估计等于 28%，与丹麦、芬兰、瑞典或美国的估计相似。此外，我们还确定了可能导致这种现象的渠道，包括减少工作日以及转向兼职或固定期限合同。最后，我们提供了按教育水平对收入和劳动力市场参与的异质反应的证据：