Men and women are affected differently by the size of their salary when it comes to having families.
In a joint study by the universities of Oxford and Copenhagen, researchers found that men with higher wages are more likely to have more children.
On the other hand, women with high wages are more likely to have fewer children than those who earn less.
The wage gap will not be overcome
The researchers emphasized that they cannot provide a rationale for why wage differences mean a different attitude to family for the two sexes.
The conclusions they drew centered instead on the reasons for women’s choices in working life.
“We can only state that women’s participation in the labor market in particular is strongly influenced by considerations of increasing family size,” says Thomas Høgholm Jørgensen, associate professor of economics at the University of Copenhagen.
Certain implications
Jørgensen also pointed out what consequences these trends can have for the pay gap.
“An increase in men’s wages, which increases family growth and reduces women’s labor supply, also leads to lower wages for women in the long term.
“This further exacerbates the household wage gap.”
Source: The Nordic Page