Maternity breaks: Unemployment spells or relevant experience?

Abstract

A correspondence study is used to determine how taking a maternity break from the labor force to raise a child affects a mother's ability to get an administrative job relative to mothers who did not take such a break. Relative to mothers who did not take a maternity break, those who did were about half as likely to receive a response to their application, as were those who spent the same time working as a nanny. Listing “stay-at-home mother” as relevant experience on one's resumé does nothing to shrink this gap. These results are consistent with the effect of unemployment on call-back rates as identified by previous research, suggesting that employers view maternity breaks as a form of unemployment rather than relevant experience.