The Accumulation of Economic Disadvantage: The Influence of Childbirth and Divorce on the Income and Poverty Risk of Single Mothers

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Abstract

This study examines how motherhood earnings penalties in combination with the cost of partner absence affect single mothers’ economic well-being. Using lon­gi­tu­di­nal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics for 1990–2015 and fixedeffects mod­els with indi­vid­ual-spe­cific slopes reveals that when needs are con­trolled for, the transition to parenthood is as strongly linked to reduced family income as partner absence is. I consider different routes to single motherhood and predict that income pen­al­ties will dif­fer for women enter­ing sin­gle moth­er­hood at a first child’s birth and for women who were mar­ried at first child­birth but later sep­a­rated. I show that previ ously married mothers face larger income penalties than those who were single at first child­birth because they see larger declines in their earn­ings fol­low­ing child­birth. The results illustrate how marriage and parenthood, alongside partner absence, shape the eco­nomic pros­pects of sin­gle-mother fam­i­lies. These find­ings high­light the importance of reducing gender inequalities in the labor market to improve single mothers’ economic well-being.

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APA

Harkness, S. (2022). The Accumulation of Economic Disadvantage: The Influence of Childbirth and Divorce on the Income and Poverty Risk of Single Mothers. Demography, 59(4), 1377–1402. https://doi.org/10.1215/00703370-10065784

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