This thesis studies the impact of marriage and children on wages, as well wage expectations by gender and family situation. As its principal source of empirical analysis, it uses data from a factorial survey (LIVES-JOBVUL) amongst Swiss employers and recruiters. The experimental design allows for the analysis of the impact of discrimination of employers on wages, an often theorised but empirically under-studied mechanism behind wage differences between groups. To complement this analysis it uses data from nationally-representative panel surveys (Swiss Household Panel, Swiss Labour Force Survey), both to contextualise the findings of the factorial survey results and to provide results from the supply (employee) side of the labour market. Results show that for men, marriage is associated with a wage premium that is largely explained by selection of more productive men into marriage, but with some
effect of productivity improvements and employer preferences. For women, motherhood is associated with a wage penalty that is impacted by employer discrimination, for young mothers especially. This discrimination is shown to stem from all types of recruiters irrespective of their own gender and family situation, though women without children hand out slightly higher penalties than others. Finally, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Innovation Sample, expected wages and their link to actual wages is investigated, with results indicating that gender gaps in expected wages are partly linked to different types of work and family situations. In sum, the thesis concludes that gender gaps persist on the Swiss labour market, though not uniformly across occupations, and are the result of multidimensional mechanisms linked to both labour supply and demand.