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  • Title: Young women's preferences for market work: responses to marital events.
    Author: Spitze GD, Waite LJ.
    Journal: Res Popul Econ; 1981; 3():147-66. PubMed ID: 12265058.
    Abstract:
    A causal model of changes in women's longrun tastes for paid employment was developed. It is based on the premise that women have a certain preference for market versus home work at the beginning of a year and that during the year some women experience a marital event, which may be a 1st marriage, a 1st birth, or the breakup of an existing marriage. This marital event may then cause some of the women experiencing it to revise their relative tastes for employment and work in the home. It is argued that changes in the level of such resources as time and money and changes in feelings of personal fulfillment that occur as a result of marriage, 1st birth, or divorce are responsible for alterations in market work preferences. Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women were used to examine how women's relative preference for market work and home work are affected by the transitions of 1st marriage, marital dissolution, and 1st birth. This survey includes yearly data on over 5000 young women over a recent 5 year period. Personal interviews were conducted with a national probability sample of the noninstitutionalized female population age 14-24 in 1968, with yearly reinterviews through 1973. The impact of a 1st marriage during a year on preference for market work at the end of that year was consistently negative from ages 14 through 23. The likelihood that a young woman prefers market to home work at age 35 decreases from 10-20 percentage points upon 1st marriage. Women who first marry beyond age 24 experience no change in preferences for labor force participation. The positive impact of marital dissolution on a young woman's preference for labor force participation was substantial--between 18 and 29 percentage points--and tended to be higher the later it occurred. The experience of marital dissolution causes women to need to prepare for work. The results suggest that it also increases their desire to work. A 1st birth had no immediate impact but was followed 1-2 years later by striking upward revisions in market work preferences. For women between ages 16-27 who experienced a 1st birth, the probability that they prefer paid employment to home was increased by 10-15 percentage points. This effect was consistently positive and was significant for 6 out of 7 age groups. The occurrence of a 1st birth continued to have an impact on a woman's preference for labor force participation up to about age 25; marriage had no impact beyond age 23.
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