The Pay Penalty for Having Children

More labour market economics, with a Resolution Foundation report looking at gender inequality, highlighting that the gender pay gap is only 5% for workers in their 20s but rises for workers in their 30s and 40s.

The argument is that having a child carries a "sharp and long-lasting" pay penalty.

However, the case isn't straightforward. Last year, IFS research suggested that there were other reasons that contributed to this divergence: more women of child-bearing age work in part-time jobs than men and, on average, part-time jobs carry lower pay rates than full-time jobs. And bear in mind that some of the women in these jobs will have chosen to work part-time.

So whilst I don't doubt that there's inequality in the labour market: you need to be careful about flagging up its causes.