“I Got Lucky”

Abstract

The United States is one of the few countries in the world without national paid parental leave benefits. The lack of a universally available policy drives women out of the paid labor force, with a disproportionate impact on low-income women. In this article, I illuminate the mechanisms by which structural inequality reproduces class inequality across the transition to motherhood. Between 2012 and 2015, I interviewed 44 first-time mothers from diverse class backgrounds. From their narratives, I identify three typologies of working women—professional, pink-professional, and low-wage workers—and show how formal workplace policies and informal practices, coupled with women’s cultural knowledge, shape new mothers’ employment trajectories when they have their first child. Policy makers and social workers serving new mothers need to be attuned to how women’s occupational group may facilitate or inhibit access to parental leave, in order to pave the way for more equitable paid family leave for all women.