This thesis examines the post childbirth employment behaviour of women in England and Wales who are self-employed during pregnancy. It presents a secondary analysis of nationally representative data for England and Wales via the 2001 Individual Sample of Anonymised Records and the Millennium Cohort Study (2001-2005).A multinomial regression analysis of Census data is used to assess self-employed labour supply for women of childbearing age. In addition to this a combination of descriptive statistics and logistic regressions are used to examine the post-childbirth employment trajectories and outcomes of women who worked as self-employed during pregnancy.The majority (eighty percent) of women who are self-employed during pregnancy go on leave from their job rather than finish work, and only seventeen percent of these women are absent from self-employment at nine months postpartum. A comparable percentage of employees make the same transitions back to work but the self-employed women return quicker, with twenty-five percent returning in less than one month. The factors associated with a continuation in employment can vary between the two types of work. Whilst educational qualifications are positively associated with continuing to work as an employee, this does not apply to those who are self-employed. Evidence suggests that maternity pay influences whether women continue in self-employment and the number of women who do not receive Statutory Maternity Pay or Maternity Allowance is a cause for concern. The thesis also considers such women’s preferred working hours, time with children, working schedules and autonomy as indicators of the mothers’ work-family balance. The data suggests that in England and Wales (2001-02) the women who returned to self-employment within nine months of birth did not have an increased work-family balance when compared to their employee counterparts. On the basis of the findings, I discuss the possibility that self-employed women may benefit from financial assistance beyond what is currently offered.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:559320 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Limmer, Hayley |
| Contributors | Olsen, Wendy; Fagan, Colette |
| Publisher | University of Manchester |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/selfemployed-women-in-england-and-wales-the-employment-trajectories-and-outcomes-of-women-who-are-selfemployed-during-pregnancy(0e486336-0cfc-4071-ae5a-2f56de1cfcd1).html |
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