We show that the widespread approach to estimate the career costs of motherhood – so called “child penalties” – is prone to produce biased results, as it pools first-time mothers of all ages without accounting for their differences in characteristics and outcomes. We propose a novel...

Using nationally representative longitudinal data from the Consumer Pyramids Household Survey, we examine the effect of childbirth on female labour market outcomes in India. Contrary to findings from similar studies in developed countries, we do not observe any motherhood penalty in earnings,...