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Does motherhood mean working for less?: the impact of having children on women’s income

This study addresses the overall question: what effect does being childfree have on married women‟s income? Using data from the ATUS 2005-2007, three sets of hypotheses were tested to assess different theoretical relationships between motherhood and income. Questions explored include: Do married women hit a “maternal wall”? Does educational attainment affect income for women differently based on parental status? And are mothers disproportionately “crowded” into inferior economic positions? Findings indicate that age and level of education significantly impact income, as does occupational sector. On average, women with children do earn less per week ($615) than women without children ($651). Interestingly, however, women with children occupy a higher percentage of the white-collar high skill job categories (50%) than women without children (44%). Multivariate analyses suggest that women with children earn slightly more than childfree women at the weekly earnings level. However, explanations for this finding vary. This research yields some surprising results and implications of this research are substantial. / Thesis (M.A.)--Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Sociology

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:WICHITA/oai:soar.wichita.edu:10057/3299
Date05 1900
CreatorsCurtis, Kelcey
ContributorsHertzog, Jodie
PublisherWichita State University
Source SetsWichita State University
Languageen_US
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Formatvi, 49 p., 400450 bytes, 1843 bytes, application/pdf, text/plain
RightsCopyright Kelcey Curtis, 2010. All rights reserved

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