Children and the Timing of Women's Paid Work after Childbirth: A Further Specification of the Relationship

Abstract

An assessment was made of the role of children in the timing of womens employment in paid work after a birth. Data were obtained from the 1983-86 Panel Study of Income Dynamics on 597 American women aged 18-45 years with a birth after December 1982. Event history methods were used to determine the hazard of starting paid work for women who had a child. Explanatory variables were level of education work status during pregnancy race unemployment rate work experience income marginal federal income tax rate home ownership number of children ages of children and spacing of children. The conceptual framework was based on Backers new home economics which states that individuals attain their goals by allocating time and resources to this end subject to existing resource constraints and preferences. Opportunity costs are defined as the value of what is lost as the full wage of not working and reservation wage. Even though the assumption is made that the ratio of hazards stays constant over time Cox proportional hazard models were constructed and some time-varying variables were included. The findings revealed that 18% of women stopped work for 1 month or less. The probability of resuming work after 4 complete months was 50%; after 1 year 61%. Multivariate analysis showed that work during pregnancy had the most significant effect on future employment after a birth. Few variables were statistically significant. The likelihood of employment was 6.5 times higher for women who worked at least 7 months prior to the birth. After 6 months the likelihood was reduced to only 3 time higher. Home ownership increased the likelihood by 25% and each 1% increase in the marginal tax rate increased the likelihood by 5%; each $1000 of nonwage income lowered the likelihood by 36%. The implication was that paid maternity leave would encourage women to stay at home. There was no justification for business concerns that reproductive age women are a risk because of the likelihood of their not returning to paid work after childbirth and therefore should be disadvantaged in hiring and wage scales.