The Gender Gap in Early Career Wage Growth: The Role of Children, Job Mobility, and Occupational Mobility

During the first 10 years in the Swedish labor market, male university graduates experience a faster wage growth than females. We investigate the role job and upward occupational mobility have for the creation of gender difference in early career wage growth; and the role of motherhood as an underlying mechanism. We find that although men and women change jobs and occupations at the same rate, women receive a significantly lower wage returns to mobility than men. We find evidence that women's lower return to occupational mobility is largely explained by motherhood, while the evidence for job mobility is rather weak.