Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Extensive research has established a negative relationship between women’s employment and their fertility, but has not come to a conclusion about the causal nature of this relationship. In particular, it is not clear how economic and practical constraints interact with women’s own desires for employment and for children. Preference theory (Hakim 2000, 2003) proposes that women’s preferences for work or for family orientation determine both employment and fertility behavior largely independently of economic and social factors. In this analysis, I use longitudinal data on work and fertility intentions, fertility behavior, and labor force participation from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 cohort to test predictions generated by preference theory. I focus on the employment-fertility relationship at a particular moment in women’s family formation trajectory, the time after the first birth. I find only weak support for preference theory.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: How do statutory protections against pregnancy discrimination directly affect employees who breastfeed, the infertile, and those who wish to control fertility? This paper examines the limits of the coverage federal courts have been willing to provide employees under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 (PDA). In the 25 years since Congress recognized pregnancy as a form of gender discrimination, federal courts have wrestled with the permissible treatment of pregnant workers. But what are the parameters of this statute? Are male employees discriminated against if they do not have identical opportunities as female colleagues? Are employers and their insurance companies responsible for infertility treatments, if infertility is the absence of pregnancy? Does the avoidance of pregnancy through the use of birth control constitute a “related condition” warranting coverage? Are employees who breastfeed protected by statutory language that considers “any discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, and any related condition” sex discrimination? Is breastfeeding “a related condition of pregnancy”? Based on a data set of published opinions of the federal courts surrounding the application and definition of this statute, this paper examines how the federal courts have answered these questions and consequently interpreted the scope of the PDA.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In various hospitals and obstetric waiting rooms women are confronted with dozens of leaflets and posters which warn them about all kinds of hazards which they face during their pregnancy and impending birth. These women are told about invisible killers lurking in their ignorance. Yet, blame is allocated to those who fail to inform themselves about the risks we face. Risk, according to the works of Beck and Giddens has become a force of social change. It can be seen to actively shape our concept of health, desire for perfection, and our relationship to technology and responsibility. It is these themes which are noticeably absent from previous research in the area of sociology of childbirth and can provide insight into the agency of women who seek medical intervention during pregnancy and childbirth. To understand sociologically the embracement of medical intervention during pregnancy and childbirth, this article will first give a cursory background to the cultural context of childbirth in Australia and afterwards the literature on risk will be employed by addressing the above mentioned themes.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The bio-developmental view sees the readiness and soundness of the organism at the time of first birth as its prime link to health and survival years and decades later. It suggests an optimum age at first birth shortly after puberty. The bio-social view emphasizes social correlates and consequences of age at first birth that may influence health and survival many years later. It suggests that better health and survival come from delaying motherhood as long as possible. Analyses consistently find patterns more in keeping with the bio-social view in a U.S. national sample of women ages 25 through 95. The fitted curves show high levels of current health problems among women who first gave birth shortly after puberty. Problems drop steadily the longer that first birth was delayed, up to about age 30. The downward slope then gradually flattens with each additional year of having delayed, up to about age 34. The ratio of health problems expected given first birth under age 18 versus at around 34 equals that from currently being 14 years older. Health problems rise steeply with length of having delayed beyond age 40. Mortality hazard also declines with having delayed first birth well beyond the end of puberty. The ratio between mothers with early versus late first births equals that from a 10 year difference in current years of age.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper assesses the effects of family structure on the risk of first premarital birth
in the presence of correlated unmeasured family effects. The availability of multiple sibling
respondents per family permits identification of family-level unobserved heterogeneity in a multi-level context of individuals nested within families. Our models account for family-specific sources of unobserved heterogeneity in family structure and nonmarital childbearing, and
provide estimates of the association between these sources of unobserved heterogeneity along with the effects of family structure and other covariates. We find that accounting for the correlation between unobserved family-level effects in processes generating family structure and first premarital birth leads to attenuated estimates of family structure effects on the risk of first premarital birth. This suggests that other family-level factors may play a mediating role in generating both family structure and nonmarital childbearing.