While labour market penalties related to motherhood are a widely studied topic, less is known about the implications of signalled potential fertility. We thus posed the question of whether potential fertility—operationalized as the likelihood that a childless woman will transition to motherhood depending on observed sociodemographic characteristics—is associated with a wage penalty and—if so—what the drivers of this wage gap are. We further tested theory-driven hypotheses about heterogeneity across institutional contexts (i.e. in Germany and the United Kingdom) and socio-economic classes. In so doing, we relied on SOEP, BHPS, and UKHLS panel data to construct a synthetic measure of potential fertility over the period from 1991 to 2017. We first explored the overall association between potential fertility and wages and found a wage gap to the disadvantage of potential mothers in both contexts, albeit with non-negligible heterogeneity across time and socio-economic classes. Subsequently, we selected the top and bottom quartiles of the distribution of potential fertility and performed a 2-fold decomposition of the wage differential between potential mothers and women who are less likely to transition to motherhood. The observed wage gap can mostly be explained by compositional differences in observed characteristics between the two groups of women, thereby leaving little room for explanations based on employer discrimination.

中文翻译：

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“潜在的母亲”惩罚？德国和英国基于潜在生育率的工资差距纵向分析

虽然与母亲有关的劳动力市场惩罚是一个广泛研究的话题，但人们对信号潜在生育能力的影响知之甚少。因此，我们提出了一个问题，潜在生育率——根据观察到的社会人口特征，作为没有孩子的妇女过渡为母亲的可能性来运作——是否与工资惩罚有关，如果是的话，这种工资差距的驱动因素是什么。我们进一步检验了关于跨制度背景（即德国和英国）和社会经济阶层的异质性的理论驱动假设。为此，我们依靠 SOEP、BHPS 和 UKHLS 面板数据构建了 1991 年至 2017 年期间潜在生育率的综合衡量指标。我们首先探讨了潜在生育率与工资之间的整体关联，发现工资差距在这两种情况下都对潜在母亲不利，尽管在不同时间和社会经济阶层之间存在不可忽略的异质性。随后，我们选择了潜在生育率分布的最高和最低四分位数，并对潜在母亲和不太可能过渡为母亲的女性之间的工资差异进行了两倍分解。观察到的工资差距主要可以通过观察到的两组女性特征的构成差异来解释，因此几乎没有留下基于雇主歧视的解释空间。我们选择了潜在生育率分布的最高和最低四分位数，并对潜在母亲和不太可能过渡为母亲的女性之间的工资差异进行了两倍分解。观察到的工资差距主要可以通过观察到的两组女性特征的构成差异来解释，因此几乎没有留下基于雇主歧视的解释空间。我们选择了潜在生育率分布的最高和最低四分位数，并对潜在母亲和不太可能过渡为母亲的女性之间的工资差异进行了两倍分解。观察到的工资差距主要可以通过观察到的两组女性特征的构成差异来解释，因此几乎没有留下基于雇主歧视的解释空间。