US Women Narrowed Pay Gap With Men By Having Fewer Kids
In the mid-1980s, women were making only 65% as much as men for every hour of paid work.
- Date & Time:
- |
- Views: 40
- |
- From: India News Bull
In 2024, women in the United States earned approximately 85% of what men made for each hour of work. This represents significant progress compared to four decades ago when, in the mid-1980s, women were only earning 65% of men's hourly wages.
The improvement in women's relative earnings stems partly from their educational advancements, increased work experience, and transition into higher-paying professions. However, the journey toward wage parity has plateaued in recent years.
A team of sociologists and demographers investigated whether family structure changes might contribute to the narrowing pay gap. Their research, published in Social Forces in June 2025, suggests that declining fertility rates among American women have played a notable role in reducing wage inequality.
Parenthood affects earnings differently across genders. Mothers typically experience wage penalties after having children, with these penalties increasing with each additional child. Conversely, men often see wage increases following fatherhood. These opposing effects widen the gender pay disparity.
The overall birth rate in America has declined considerably. Women in their 40s averaged around three children in 1980, dropping to 1.9 by 2000, where it has generally remained.
Researchers analyzed representative data from U.S. families to examine how fertility changes among working Americans aged 30-55 impact earnings. The findings revealed that employees' average number of children decreased substantially from about 2.4 in 1980 to approximately 1.8 in 2000, remaining stable through 2018.
During this same period, women's relative hourly earnings rose significantly, from 58% of men's wages in 1980 to 69% by 1990, then gradually climbing to 76% by 2018. This pattern suggests that as family sizes decreased, the wage gap narrowed, with both trends showing rapid change during the 1980s followed by slower progress.
After controlling for factors like education, work experience, and occupation, researchers determined that approximately 8% of the gender pay gap reduction between 1980 and 2018 can be attributed to declining fertility rates among working adults.
The analysis also demonstrated that the decrease in family size was more pronounced in the 1980s than in subsequent decades, coinciding with the period of fastest progress toward pay equality. When the average number of children stabilized around 2000, women's wage gains relative to men also leveled off.
The implications of declining fertility rates remain a subject of debate among U.S. scholars and policymakers. This research indicates that future fertility trends will likely influence the pace at which wage equality is achieved.
However, the relationship between family size and the pay gap exists only because parenthood continues to have opposing effects on men's and women's earnings. As long as these unequal impacts persist, they will continue to impede progress toward wage parity.
(Authors: Alexandra Killewald, Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan; Nino Cricco, Doctoral Student in Sociology, Harvard University)
(This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.)
(Disclosure: The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.)