Many authors suggest that having children leads to gaps between the number of hours people prefer to work and the hours they actually work. Existing research, however, offers mixed support for that claim. We discuss the roots of this popular but poorly supported hypothesis and offer the first review of research on the topic, paying special…

Using Swedish panel data, we assess whether the gender gap in supervisory authority has changed during the period 1968-2000, and investigate to what extent the gap can be attributed to gender-specific consequences of family formation. The results indicate that the gap has narrowed modestly during the period, and that the life-event of parenthood…

Maternity leave policies are designed to ease the tension between women's employment and fertility, but whether they actually play such a role remains unclear. We analyze the individual-level effects of maternity leave on employment outcomes and on second conception rates among Russian first-time mothers from 1985-2000 using retrospective job and…

Using data from a representative sample of American workers, we examine the association between education and work-to-family conflict--a form of inter-role conflict in which role pressures from each domain are incompatible in some way. The well-educated tend to occupy professional jobs with more income and pressures, and experience more…

Received wisdom, some sociological theory and a handful of qualitative studies suggest that the "night shift" of caregiving work that interrupts sleep is a burden borne disproportionately by women. However, there is no broadly representative evidence to substantiate claims about who takes the night shift in contemporary American households.…

This study introduces data from a new random sample of Japanese adults. Findings show that reporting of distress symptoms are: (1. positively associated with a religious coping index (i.e., beliefs that religion or supernatural beings provide comfort, support or protection), (2. associated in different directions with ownership of different…

This article focuses on three countries with distinct policies toward motherhood and work: Germany, Sweden and the United States. We analyze the length of mothers' time out of paid work after childbirth and the short-term career consequences for mothers. In the United States, we identify a career punishment even for short time-out periods; long…

Academic careers have traditionally been conceptualized as pipelines, through which young scholars move seamlessly from graduate school to tenure-track positions. This model often fails to capture the experiences of female Ph.D. recipients, who become tenure-track assistant professors at lower rates than do their male counterparts. What do these…

Using data from the 2003 and 2004 American Time Use Surveys, this article examines nonstandard work hours and their relationship to parents' family, leisure and personal care time--informing the discussion of the costs and benefits of working nonstandard hours. The results suggest that parents who work nonstandard evening hours spend less time in…

Previous research on China's labor market gender gaps has emphasized the human and political capital disadvantages of women and new discrimination in the reform era. Analyzing the China Urban Labor Survey/China Adult Literacy Survey, this paper shows that while women are significantly disadvantaged by various measures of human and political…

Are gender differences in the effects of family structure on self-employment participation robust across different forms of self-employment? Using event history analyses of competing risks and data spanning 20 years, the author finds that women enter non-professional and non-managerial self-employment to balance work and family demands. In…

Gender is strongly related to career outcomes among Chicago lawyers. Men and women begin their careers in difference practice contexts, and the differences grow over time. Individual preferences do not fully account for the gender gap. Law school prestige and class rank influence career paths but do not explain the gender gap. (Contains 85…

Data from the 1992-93 National Survey of Families and Households were used to examine the effect of parenthood on married men's and women's employment and work hours. Parenthood decreased women's work effort as expected. Findings for men support two competing models--"good provider" and "involved father"--reflecting traditional…

Analysis of data from the National Survey of Families and Households suggests that parents' job characteristics, indicative of the primary- and secondary-sector labor market division, influence levels of parental supervision of children and children's feelings of attachment and efficacy, educational aspirations, and grade point average, all of…

Analysis of 82 court cases involving pregnancy discrimination, 1972-91, shows that this litigation revealed the gender bias of equal employment opportunity law and capitalist economic relations, eroded assumptions about economic imperatives for not accommodating pregnant workers, and laid the groundwork for the Family and Medical Leave Act of…