Despite substantial gender convergence over the last century, there is still considerable
gender inequality in labour market outcomes in all developed countries. Evidence from
different high-income countries suggests that most of the remaining gender inequality can
be explained by the unequal impacts of parenthood on men and women (e.g. Waldfogel
1998; Paull 2008; Bertrand et al. 2010; Goldin 2014; Angelov et al. 2016; Kleven et al.
2016). For example, Kleven et al. (2016) show that 80% of the remaining earnings
inequality between men and women in Denmark results from ‘child penalties’ faced by
mothers, but not fathers. A variety of underlying mechanisms may be at play—from
traditional stories focusing on comparative advantage and the gains from specialization
to more behavioural stories focusing on social norms—but the evidence suggests that
these mechanisms operate primarily through the impacts of children.