First Time Mothers' Postpartum Employment Breaks: Predictors, and Marital Quality and Mental Health
Open Access
- Author:
- Hayes, Lydia N
- Graduate Program:
- Sociology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- February 25, 2016
- Committee Members:
- David R Johnson, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Sarah A Damaske, Committee Member
Valarie Elizabeth King, Committee Member
Kurt David Johnson, Committee Member - Keywords:
- Transition to Parenthood
Work
Family
Maternity Leave
Marital Quality
Mental Health
Motherhood
Stratification - Abstract:
- The primary aims of this research are to explore the factors that determine the amount of time that women in two cohorts spend out of the labor force after their first birth, and to investigate if postpartum time out of work has an influence on two factors of women’s wellbeing: marital quality and mental health. In this project, I conduct both descriptive and analytical investigations of the longitudinal data from two cohorts of nationally representative National Longitudinal Survey of Youths (1979 and 1997 cohorts). First, using both cohorts of the NLSY, I investigate several sociodemographic factors that are hypothesized to predict the length of time women spend out of work following their first births. My findings indicate that women’s postpartum employment break duration is stratified by education and income at first birth. Women with the greatest pre-birth SES have the shortest breaks, and women who are most disadvantaged at first birth have both short breaks and very long breaks. The results of this analyses indicate several cohort differences. In particular, the younger group of women takes significantly shorter breaks. Next, I examine the relationship between break length and two dimensions of women’s wellbeing: marital quality and mental health. I find, using the NLSY79, no indication of a significant association between break duration and two separate dimensions of marital quality in any models in which I control for marital duration. Using the NLSY97 to explore the association between break duration and mental health, I find a significant declines in mental health for breaks lasting between 5 and 12 weeks; however, the effects of this relationship are mediated by the addition of controls for age at first birth and marital status. Throughout this research, I explore the stratification of women by SES. I find that, overall, women are stratified in terms of length of breaks. Women with the greatest SES are shown to return to work most quickly. On the other hand, Further, tthis research also indicates that the women with the least income and education both return very quickly and are at risk of very long breaks from employment.