Patterns and Predictors of Women's Employment during Early Parenthood: An Application of the Group-Based Trajectory Method

Kathryn Hynes, Cornell University

Research on women’s employment during early parenthood frequently focuses on the correlates and consequences of decisions at a particular time, such as around a birth. This paper applies a new group-based trajectory method (Nagin 1999) in order to examine women’s employment trajectories across the period of early parenthood. We focus on six distinct trajectories around first and second births that span the employment continuum. Only about half of the mothers in our sample followed trajectories characterized by either continuous employment through the period surrounding a birth or by a sharp decline in employment closely corresponding to the birth event (whether followed by a rapid return or not). Preliminary descriptive analyses indicate that age at first birth, income and education are strongly associated with different employment trajectories. Our next step is to estimate multinomial logistic regression models, examining predictors of trajectory type.