ABSTRACT
The fatherhood premium and motherhood penalty have been primary subjects in the issue of gender income gaps. Using an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) model, influencing mechanism analysis, and Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition, we examine gig workers’ income changes before and after parenthood by gender. We find that the motherhood penalty is vanishing, while the fatherhood premium has devolved into a fatherhood penalty in the gig economy due to work pressures and the gender segregation of occupations that force men to balance time and energy between work and childcare in a way that is not as prevalent outside the gig economy.