Is the wage penalty due to motherhood larger among highly qualified women? In this paper, we study
the effect of parenthood on the careers of high-achieving women relative to high-achieving men in a
set of high-earning professions with either nonlinear or linear wage structures. Using Norwegian
registry data, we find that the child earnings penalty for mothers in professions with a nonlinear
wage structure, MBAs and lawyers, is substantially larger than for mothers in professions with a
linear wage structure. The gender earnings gap for MBA and law graduates is around 30%, but
substantially less for STEM and medicine graduates, 10 years after childbirth. In addition, we
provide some descriptive
statistics on the role of fertility timing on the child earnings penalty.