The next time you are invited to 'wet the baby's head' with a boss who has just become a parent, be warned: his new offspring could well affect your salary.

Wages can go up or down depending on the baby's gender and the head of a company could significantly change the way he looks at his employees after the birth of a child, according to new research.

The paper, written by Aalborg University economics professor Michael Dahl, University of Maryland Smith School of Business professor Cristian Dezso and Columbia Business School professor David Gaddis Ross, was presented last week at the American Economics Association annual meeting.

The findings were drawn up with the help of more than 1,600 births to 18,000 male CEOs at 10,655 private companies in Denmark between 1996 and 2006.

Among the team's findings are that when a male chief executive has a baby, his workers’ salaries shrink by 0.2 percent, or about $100 per year, reports The Wall Street Journal.

That figure drops to 0.4 percent if he fathers a son.

The authors suggest this might be because the chief executive feels the need to hoard resources and protect his own family in the event of financial hardship.

Likewise, the report also suggests a male CEO’s own wages rise 6.3 percent after the birth of a son and 3.5 percent after the birth of a daughter.

If the boss and his wife have a daughter for their first child, employees' wages are more likely to rise, the report suggests.

In that event, the wages of female employees are more likely to rise by 1.1 percent, compared to a 0.6 percent for male employees.

But in general, women can cash in when a male CEO has children, regardless of gender.

Even when the executive has a son, female employees’ salaries shrink by a more modest 0.2 percent, compared to a 0.5 percent drop for male workers.

And when the son is the executive’s first child, female employees’ salaries actually go up 0.8 percent.

The report suggests that the CEOs who become fathers may change their view towards their female staff and see them as more competent.

(Read by Emily Cheng. Emily Cheng is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)