Trends in labor force participation of married mothers of infants

Monthly Labor Review

Volumn 130, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 9-16

  Cohany, Sharon R ^a   Sok, Emy ^a  

^a BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 34247598890     PISSN: 00981818     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (28)

1. For a detailed description of trends in labor force participation since World War II, see Abraham Mosisa and Steven Hipple, "Trends in labor force participation in the United States," Monthly Labor Review, October 2006, pp. 35-57.
2. For the latest BLS labor force projections, see Mitra Toossi, "Labor force projections to 2014: retiring boomers," Monthly Labor Review, November 2005, pp. 25-44.
3. Longer term perspectives on women's changing roles are presented in Mitra Toossi, "A century of change: U.S. labor force from 1950 to 2050," Monthly Labor Review, May 2002, pp. 15-28
4. Claudia Goldin, "The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women's Employment, Education, and Family," The American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings of the One Hundred Eighteenth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association, Boston, MA, January 6-8, 2006, May 2006.
5. Data prior to 1994 are from the Annual Social and Economic Supplement (formerly called the Annual Demographic Supplement) to the Current Population Survey. Starting in 1994, data are annual averages compiled from monthly estimates, unless otherwise noted.
6. The labor force participation rate is the labor force level for a particular group divided by the civilian noninstitutional population of that group. The labor force is the sum of the employed plus the unemployed.
7. Previous interruptions in the growth of women's participation rates were analyzed in two articles by Howard Hayghe: "Are women leaving the labor force?" Monthly Labor Review, July 1994, pp. 37-39
8. "Developments in women's labor force participation," Monthly Labor Review, September 1997, pp. 41-46.
9. In this article, a mother is defined as a woman with one or more own children under the age of 18 with whom she lives. Children include sons, daughters, adopted children, and stepchildren. Not included are nieces, nephews, grandchildren, other related children, and unrelated children. A married mother is a mother whose husband is present in the household.
10. Educational attainment data from the CPS are typically confined to persons 25 years and older, an age at which most people have completed their formal education.
11. In this article, data by race are for non-Hispanic persons. Persons who are identified as Hispanic, an ethnic category, can be of any race.
12. The cost of child care has been identified as a significant factor in a mother's decision to return to work. See Lisa Barrow, "An Analysis of Women's Return-to-Work Decisions Following First Birth," Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, September 1998. Other research finds that working and non-working women have different values.
13. See Mahshid Jalilvand, "Married women, work, and values," Monthly Labor Review, August 2000.
14. A link between women's falling participation rate and a weakened demand for labor is examined in Heather Boushey, "Are Women Opting Out? Debunking the Myth," Center for Economic and Policy Research, Briefing paper, November 2005.
15. From a table on the Census Bureau Web site: http://www.census.gov/ population/socdemo/education/cps2005/tabA-1.xls. In 1992, the categories used to classify educational attainment were revised to reflect the highest degree or diploma attained rather than the number of years of school completed. For a detailed description of the change, see Robert Kominski and Paul Siegel, "Measuring education in the Current Population Survey," Monthly Labor Review, September 1993, pp. 34-38. The comparisons between 1950, 1960, and later years use data as of March of the respective years rather than annual averages, which began to be produced for educational attainment data only in 1992.
16. Educational Attainment of Workers: March 1962, Special Labor Force Report No. 30 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1963). For historical comparability, these participation rates are for age 18 and older.
17. On the other hand, higher income mothers have greater opportunity costs associated with not working and also are more able to afford child care. For a study of the relationship between wives' employment growth and husbands' earnings, see Chinhui Juhn and Kevin M. Murphy, "Wage Inequality and Family Labor Supply," Journal of Labor Economics, January 1997, pp. 72-97.
18. Press coverage has featured college-educated women who are having difficulty finding jobs after an absence from the work force to raise children, especially jobs at or near their former levels of pay and responsibility. Examples are "Getting Back on Track," Newsweek, September 25, 2006
19. "After Years Off, Women Struggle to Revive Careers," The Wall Street Journal, May 6, 2004
20. "Workplaces Prepare for Reentry," The Washington Post, March 20, 2005
21. "The Baby Sabbatical," American Demographics, February 1, 2002. The unemployment rate for college-educated mothers of infants was essentially the same in 1997 and 2005 - around 2 percent. The jobless rate for all women was 5 percent in both years.
22. Although the CPS does not include measures of overwork or stress, in a study by the Families and Work Institute entitled "Overwork in America" (Executive Summary, 2004), women reported feeling overworked somewhat more often than men. Another study by the institute, "Highlights of the National Study of the Changing Workforce" (Executive Summary, 2002), found significantly higher levels of interference between one's work and family life compared with 25 years earlier.
23. Shift-share calculations found that had the proportions of four selected population groups stayed the same between 1997 and 2005, the labor force participation rate of married mothers of infants would have been 54.6 percent in 2005 instead of 53.5 percent. The groups were Hispanic native-born Hispanic foreign-born, non-Hispanic foreign-born, and native-born non-Hispanic mothers of infants. These groups are mutually exclusive and include all married mothers of infants. In 2005, nearly 60 percent of Hispanic married mothers of infants were born outside the United States, while one-half of foreign-born married mothers of infants were Hispanic.
24. There are relatively few teenage married mothers of infants, accounting for about 10 percent of the 16-to 24-year age group and just about 2 percent of the total.
25. The year 2000 is used for comparison because the data are more readily tabulated beginning in that year.
26. U.S. Census Bureau, table FM-3, "Average Number of Own Children Under 18 Per Family, by Type of Family: 1955 to Present." http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hh-fam/fm3.pdf.
27. Unpublished tabulations from the Current Population Survey, available from the Division of Labor Force Statistics, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
28. Earnings data in the CPS are collected from one-quarter of the sample each month. CPS earnings estimates include wage and salary workers only and exclude the self-employed. The earnings data presented here are further restricted to married fathers of infants.