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Title: Employment Experience and Job Satisfaction of New Mothers
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Wolfe, Jerri L.
Employment Experience and Job Satisfaction of New Mothers
Ph.D. Dissertation, Oregon State University, 1987
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning
Keyword(s): Employment; Job Patterns; Job Satisfaction; Mothers; Working Conditions

In spite of the high family demands associated with having an infant, an increasing number of women are choosing to retain close ties to the labor force during this period. This study explored the employment adjustments and job satisfaction of a group of women who became mothers for the first time. The data for this study were taken from the NLSY. Thirty-one married women who had their first child between the 1981 and 1982 interviews and were employed during both the 1980 and 1982 interviews were the focus of analysis. Two additional groups of women, childless women (n = 171) and women with at least two children (n = 62) were included in the analysis for comparison purposes. Strategies for managing the new responsibilities of parenthood included decreasing hours worked on the job and changing the shift worked. Few other changes were observed in the comparison of pre-pregnancy job characteristics with postchildbirth job characteristics. No change in job satisfaction was found. This stability may be due to the fact that 65 percent of new mothers were attached to one employer during this two year period. Additional analysis revealed that 91 percent of new mothers had only one employer during the year they gave birth. Thus, it appears from these data that the ability to return to the same employer following childbirth may be pivotal in women's decision to return quickly to the labor force.
Bibliography Citation
Wolfe, Jerri L. Employment Experience and Job Satisfaction of New Mothers. Ph.D. Dissertation, Oregon State University, 1987.