Maternal Employment After a Birth: Examining Variations by Family Structure

Employment rates for married and unmarried mothers in the United States crossed over in the early 1990s, leading to questions about how marital status and family structure affect contemporary maternal employment. A mother's family structure whether she is married, cohabiting or living without a partner may affect her employment through her family's income needs, the instrumental and social support she receives, and her perceived security to pursue her preferred level of employment. Additionally, if a woman has a husband or cohabiting partner, she may take his preference for her employment level into account. Alternatively, selection may explain the association between family structure and maternal employment. In this analysis, I describe how the employment of mothers varies by family structure in the five years after giving birth. Before taking demographic or human capital characteristics into account, married, cohabiting and lone mothers have similar levels of employment. Using covariate adjustments to account for differences in selection, I find that married mothers work less on average than unmarried mothers, and that cohabiting and lone unmarried mothers have very similar employment levels. Family income, family wealth, partner characteristics, and sex role attitudes do not explain this marriage effect. I argue that married mothers work less because they have greater perceived economic security, enabling them to pursue their preferred level of employment when their children are very young. Black married mothers are exceptional; on average, they work more than married white or Hispanic mothers and have similar employment levels as black unmarried mothers. This unique pattern may re ect lower economic security among black married women or a unique set of cultural values regarding the combination of childrearing and employment.