Labor market penalty for single mothers

Little is known about single mothers' labor market outcomes. On the one hand, they might not havethe typical social constraints of married women in traditional patriarchal societies, but on theother hand, they face the same constraints with respect to childcare and childbearing as othermarried mothers. While aggregate data suggests that single mothers’ participationrates are usually higher than those unmarried, we argue that in contrast tomarried women, this realized labor market equilibriummasks potential demand-side discrimination and likely reflects strong supply-side incentives.To uncover potential demand-side discrimination effects, we conduct a correspondencestudy experiment that involves applying to real jobs using fictitious resumes. Weshow that equally qualified single mothers are much less likely to receive interview callbacksthan unmarried women without children, married without children, and married mothers. Forevery interview callback a single mother has to apply to about 30 jobs, whereas an unmarriedwoman receives more than two callbacks for as many job applications.