The effect of the presence of children on the labour market performance of Canadian-born and immigrant women

Abstract

I study the labour market performance of Canadian-born and immigrant women in Canada in relation to the presence of children of different ages. Labour market performance is measured in terms of three outcomes: labour force participation, employment status, and wages. I exploit data from the 2011 National Household Survey (NHS). Linear regression models are estimated to capture the effect of the presence of children and of other control variables. The main finding is that having children does have a significantly negative effect on the labour market performance of both native-born and immigrant women. Women who have children are less likely to participate in the labour force and to be employed, and they receive lower wages than those who do not have children. Moreover, bearing younger children has a much larger effect than bearing older children. Furthermore, the negative effect of having children seems to be slightly deeper for immigrants from Asia, Africa and America than for Canadian-born women and immigrant women from other parts of the world.