Motherhood Wage Penalty in Russia: Empirical Study on RLMS-HSE Data

Abstract

The chapter is dedicated to the analysis of monthly and hourly wages of mothers and non-mothers in Russia. Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey HSE is used for the data basis to estimate the motherhood wage penalty between working women without children and working mothers. The study discloses 11% penalty for mothers in their hourly wages on average in Russia in the period of 2000–2015. Despite same level of education, tenure, qualification women with two and more children are paid considerably less than women without children. The small age of the youngest child affects the working hours which reduce the monthly wage considerably, but it does not impact the hourly wage penalty. The chapter shows that the motherhood wage penalty in Russia is lower than in Germany, UK or the US especially for the mothers with pre-school age children.