Premiums and penalties among physicians in Italy: how gender affects the combined impact of marital and parental status on pay

This paper focuses on the penalties and premiums associated with marriage and parenthood among physicians. The research is based on a dataset of more than one thousand doctors working in five hospitals in the Lombardy region of northern Italy. The results show that, all else being equal, married fathers report a 15% premium compared to childless single men while married mothers report a 15% penalty compared to single childless women. Marriage and parenthood significantly affect wages only when they are combined together. Moreover, both males' premiums and women' s penalties grow as the number of children increases, but if married fathers' premium occurs from the first child, married mothers' penalty appears only from the second child on.