Between Career and Motherhood: Factors Affecting Women’s Career Trajectories After Childbirth in Russia

Abstract

The paper puts forward the idea that a woman’s class (occupational position) contributes to the formation of certain orientations and values, which further determine a woman’s choice in favor of particular labor and life trajectory after the childbirth. The authors follow the career trajectory of women after the childbirth in Russia to determine which women are more career-oriented and which are more family-oriented. For this, “Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey–Higher School of Economics” (RLMS-HSE) panel data from 2001–2021 are employed. Drawing on a six-year period—the year before the birth and four years after the childbirth—the authors construct the sequences of various status changes (employed, unemployed, parental leave) and identify the featured patterns of mothers’ career trajectories. The authors also analyze the number of years it took for women to return to the labor market after the childbirth. It is assumed that a later entry into the labor market suggests that women are less career-oriented, and vice versa. Additionally, the factors affecting the decision to return to the labor market earlier or later are evaluated. The results of the implemented analysis (an ordinal logistic regression and a multinomial regression) show that women from the higher class tend to return to the labor market quickly, while women from the middle and working class delay entry into the workforce or refuse to develop a career.