Search Results
Author: Sillers, Anna
Resulting in 1 citation.
| 1. |
Sillers, Anna |
|
Understanding How Birth Spacing Influences the Employment Decisions of At-risk, Unmarried Mothers after the Birth of a Second Child M.P.P. Thesis, Department of Public Policy and Policy Management, Georgetown University, 2018 Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT) Keyword(s): Births, Repeat / Spacing; Maternal Employment; Parents, Single; Work History Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Returning to work after giving birth is uniquely important to unmarried mothers, who rely more heavily on their income than married mothers, who have, on average, higher household incomes. One understudied effect in unmarried mothers' employment status is the number of months between the births of the first and second child. To better understand if birth spacing impacts single mother's employment, I used data from the NLSY79 of unmarried mothers who gave birth to their first child before the age of 22 and went on to have a second child between 1980 and 2006. I conducted a survival analysis using Cox proportional hazard regressions to determine the risk of entering or returning to the workforce within a year following the second birth. I found that while spacing children more than 77 months apart is associated with a higher risk of entering the workforce when testing just birth spacing effects, these effects disappear net of controls for previous income, age and work history. This suggests that women who have children farther apart are also more likely to have characteristics associated with returning to work after giving birth. I also found that being employed before the second child is born is highly correlated with returning to or entering the workforce within twelve months of the birth. This suggests that policies that allow women to stay employed while pregnant could be helpful in encouraging single women to return to the workforce after having a second child. |
|
|
Bibliography Citation
Sillers, Anna. Understanding How Birth Spacing Influences the Employment Decisions of At-risk, Unmarried Mothers after the Birth of a Second Child. M.P.P. Thesis, Department of Public Policy and Policy Management, Georgetown University, 2018. |