Unequal advantage: Fatherhood premiums and penalties across wage distribution in China

Prior research on the fatherhood effect has predominantly focused on Western developed countries. Most studies found wage premiums, particularly among higher-earning fathers. We extend this body of scholarship by investigating the effect of fatherhood in China and variations of the effect across men's position in the wage distribution. We mainly applied fixed-effect models and residualized quantile regressions, a relatively new method of unconditional quantile treatment effects, with data from ten waves of the China Health and Nutrition Survey 1989-2015. Although the fatherhood effect was non-significant overall, the effect varied by individuals' position in the wage distribution. Specifically, fatherhood premiums were found among lower- and middle-earning men (20th and 50th quantiles), and fatherhood penalties were observed among high-earning men (80th and 90th quantiles). Tests of inter-quantile differences revealed increasing fatherhood penalties along the middle-to-top part of the wage distribution. Our results revealed different patterns than those found in Western developed countries. We interpret our findings based on theory of role salience under the developmental and policy contexts of China. Overall, our study challenges the oversimplified idea of fatherhood premiums and points to a multifaceted understanding of the fatherhood effect as structured in social context and varied by economic status. Policy interventions to raise fertility rates in China should take the differential effect of fatherhood across wages into consideration.