Replicating a study of mothers' forgone earnings in Australia

Abstract

Some well-known empirical work on the forgone earnings of mothers in Australia became a barrier to a new research project. Initially the existing results could not be replicated, but further investigations and replication attempts eventually revealed the serious errors in the earlier research. Once the results were re-estimated – in the spirit of the original research but with the errors removed – the new research project could proceed. Valid inferences could then be made about the changes in forgone earnings over time for different groups of Australian women.