Educational assortative mating and motherhood penalty in China

Mothers earn less than comparable childless women, and such motherhood penalty differs in magnitude by women’s socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. Prior research, however, has rarely considered how the effect of parenthood on women’s income may also depend on the characteristics of their partners. Using data from the China Family Panel Studies 2010–2018, we examine how the effects of motherhood on women’s earnings and within-couple income inequality vary by couples’ educational pairings in China. A large educational gap between spouses–hypergamy or hypogamy–exacerbates the motherhood penalty on a woman’s individual income and her share of the couple’s combined income. However, when the educational gap between spouses is moderate, hypergamy lessens the motherhood penalty on women’s individual income, whereas hypogamy mitigates the penalty on their share of couples’ combined earnings. In the context of China’s declining fertility, narrowing gender gap in education, and widening gender pay gap, these findings provide descriptive empirical evidence on how the motherhood penalty varies by educational assortative mating and underscore the significance of considering couple dynamics in understanding the motherhood penalty.