A Life-Changing Event: First Births and Men's and Women's Attitudes to Mothering and Gender Divisions of Labor

Baxter, Janeen; Buchler, Sandra; Perales, Francisco; Western, Mark

doi:10.1093/sf/sou103

Cited by 163 publications

(230 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Lone parents in receipt of state benefits are also not expected to seek work until their youngest child is five years old. Moreover, recent research has also shown that gender role attitudes become more traditional after first childbirth, which could also increase labour force exits (Baxter et al 2015). Once children reach school age (5 years in the UK), the mother's need to stay at home decreases.…”

Section: Trigger/ Changes In Household Conditions: Partnership Incommentioning

confidence: 99%

Labour market entries and exits of women from different origin countries in the UK

Khoudja

Platt

2018

Social Science Research

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In the context of increasing women's labour force participation (LFP) across Western countries, there remain large differences in LFP for women of different ethnic origins.While existing research has demonstrated that part of these differences can be attributed to compositional differences (age, qualifications, family context etc.) and to differences in gender role attitudes and religiosity, residual 'ethnic effects' typically remain. Further insight into the drivers of such differences has the potential to inform us about factors shaping women's LFP more widely. In this paper we exploit a largescale longitudinal study of the UK to investigate ethnic differences in both LFP entry and exit probabilities. We examine how far we can account for overall ethnic differences in LFP entry and exit, taking account of individual characteristics, gender role attitudes and religiosity, and the contribution of relevant life-course events. We find that, adjusting for all these factors, Indian and Caribbean women do not differ from White majority women in their labour force entry and exit probabilities but that Pakistani and Bangladeshi women are less likely to enter and more likely to exit the labour market, while Black African women have higher entry rates. We also find that Pakistani and Bangladeshi women's labour market entries and exits are less sensitive to partnership and child-bearing events than other women's.

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Section: Trigger/ Changes In Household Conditions: Partnership Incommentioning

confidence: 99%

Labour market entries and exits of women from different origin countries in the UK

Khoudja

Platt

2018

Social Science Research

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“…A new baby is financially costly (Bradbury 2008), and both men and women express more traditional attitudes after the birth of their first baby (Baxter et al 2015). For first time parents, childcare represents an entirely new household activity over which roles and responsibilities by the various members of the household have to be freshly worked out, and gender attitudes to parenting appear more conservative than attitudes to market work and housework time (Craig and Mullan 2011).…”

Section: Work and Childcare: Existing Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of a First Born Child on Work and Childcare Time Allocation: Pre-post Analysis of Australian Couples

2016

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This paper uses Australian data from a national representative sample of Australian couples having their first child. Using data from before and after the birth of the child on a range of variables, including economic resources, gender attitudes, workplace flexibility, and availability of non-parental childcare, we first model the factors are associated with the decision to remain in work or not after the birth of the first child. The main finding here is that childbirth has a major impact on mothers' paid work-time, whereas for fathers it has very little impact. Factors that are related to a mother's decision to remain in work or not include the absolute (but not relative) pay of each parent, the father's workplace flexibility, and paid parental leave available to the mother. We then model the factors that govern, for those mothers remaining in paid work, how much paid work they undertake. We find that changing employers is related to mothers' work hours, as are absolute post-birth salaries, as is the relative pay of each partner. As with the decision to work or not, the availability of paid parental leave to the mother is significantly related to the amount of work-time for those mothers that do continue to work. Similarly, the use of external childcare is positively associated with maternal work hours. Finally, we model the factors that determine childcare time allocation and find that for neither parent do pre-birth economic resources significantly affect childcare time, once a decision about basic work patterns has been made. Gender role attitudes affect childcare time decisions, unlike work time decisions.

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“…We focus on parenthood and relationship transitions because a large body of research has established that both of these change the gendered allocation of time and resources within households. Further, emerging research suggests that these transitions also lead to changes in individuals' identity, feelings of entitlement and priorities around gender roles (Moors 2003;Cunningham et al 2005;Cunningham, 2008;Baxter et al 2014). …”

Section: Conclusion and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, after marriage or childbirth women may give more salience to their role as mothers and prioritize family life and motherhood over other life domains. Baxter et al (2014), for instance, showed that entry to parenthood is associated with a stronger prioritization of motherhood as women's key role. If this is the case, then entry to parenthood may be associated with a decrease in perceptions of housework unfairness.…”

Section: Life Course Transitions and Perceptions Of Housework Fairnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender, justice and work: A distributive approach to perceptions of housework fairness

Perales

Baxter

Tai

2015

Social Science Research

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A Life-Changing Event: First Births and Men's and Women's Attitudes to Mothering and Gender Divisions of Labor

Cited by 163 publications

References 33 publications

Labour market entries and exits of women from different origin countries in the UK

Labour market entries and exits of women from different origin countries in the UK

The Effect of a First Born Child on Work and Childcare Time Allocation: Pre-post Analysis of Australian Couples

Gender, justice and work: A distributive approach to perceptions of housework fairness

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