Jakob Egholt Søgaard

Policymakers and economists have long assumed that high-income individuals save most of a temporary increase in income. This belief has shaped fiscal policies, leading to stimulus payments that phase out at higher incomes and weaker social insurance protections for high earners. The idea is that wealthier individuals are more likely to save rather than spend temporary income boosts, making such policies less beneficial. Our evidence challenges this assumption.

Abstract This paper investigates whether the impact of children on the labor market outcomes of women relative to men—child penalties—can be explained by the biological links between mother and child. We estimate child penalties in biological and adoptive families using event studies around the arrival of children and almost 40 years of adoption data from Denmark.

Despite considerable convergence over time, substantial gender inequality persists in all countries. Using Danish data, this column argues that this gap persists because the effects of having children on the careers of women relative to men are large and have not fallen over time. Additional findings suggest this effect may be related to inherited gender identity norms. The last century has brought considerable convergence in the labour market outcomes of men and women.