It Pays to Be a Married Dad Whose Wife Doesn't Work Full Time

Alexis Coe, The Atlantic — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 16:18:00 -0500

When the pot-smoking, financially irresponsible protagonist in the 2007 comedy Knocked Upbecomes an expectant father, he attempts to reconcile his life with impending fatherhood. He bids adieu to his slacker roommates and their dreams of launching a celebrity porn website, and we next see him painting a nursery in a newly procured apartment. The biggest change of all: Taking a job in an office.

This illustrates something people have long assumed: The responsibilities associated with fatherhood motivate men to work a bit harder and move into more lucrative careers. Harvard sociologist Alexandra Killewald had certainly read research that corroborated this theory, but wondered if "the fatherhood premium," which asserts that entry into fatherhood will produce wage gains if it prompts altered behavior, held true for all dads.

In the forthcoming paper in next month's American Sociological Review, "A Reconsideration of the Fatherhood Premium: Marriage, Coresidence, Biology, and the Wages of Fathers," Killewald shows that the wage gain does in fact exist, but that boost is not available to everyone.

Killewald found that married, biological fathers who live with their families are associated with a wage bonus of about four percent after they have kids. Unmarried fathers, fathers who do not live with their children, and stepfathers do not receive this premium.

'Don't Ask, Don't Get': How to Fix the Gender Gap in Salary Negotiations

Alexis Coe, The Atlantic — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 16:50:00 -0500

A decade ago, my grandfather waxed rhapsodic about my first job out of college at a big publishing house in Manhattan, excited by every detail. That is, he was excited, until we got to my paycheck, which bore a paltry number that was irreconcilable with the cost of living in New York.

"Baby, do you know how to ask for the money?" It was simple, direct question, but my answers were not. I spoke of industry standards and perceived meritocracies, all of which he rejected, one after another. Born and raised poor in Detroit, he was a high school drop-out who owned three car dealerships by the time he was my age.

I shrugged his question off as the assumption of a gifted businessman from a different era, but as 2012's year-end reviews wrap up, I am reminded that my grandfather was right, and I was wrong.

Many women don't know how to ask for the money. So many, in fact, that Carnegie Mellon runs aNegotiation Academy for Women co-founded by Linda C. Babcock, a professor of economics. Babcock has also co-authored two books on the subject, Women Don't Ask and Ask For It. In her first book, she offers some troubling statistics:

Men initiate negotiations about four times as often as women.
When asked to choose a metaphor to describe the negotiation process, women picked "going to the dentist." For comparison, Men chose "winning a ballgame."
Women enter negotiations with pessimistic expectations about what wage increases are available, and thus if they do negotiate, they don't ask for much: 30 percent less than men.
20 percent of adult women say they never negotiate at all, even when it may be appropriate.

"If you don't ask, you don't get," said Holly Schroth, who holds a doctorate in social psychology and is a senior lecturer at Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

Read more at The Atlantic.

Image via Andrea Danti/Shutterstock.com

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Government Executive - Authors - Alexis Coe

It Pays to Be a Married Dad Whose Wife Doesn't Work Full Time

'Don't Ask, Don't Get': How to Fix the Gender Gap in Salary Negotiations