10.17045/sthlmuni.11876391.v1
Chiara Comolli
Chiara
Comolli
Resources and aspirations during the Great Recession: the impact on the transition to motherhood
Stockholm University
2020
fertility
Great Recession
aspirations
Easterlin
socioeconomic status
Stockholm Reports in Demography
Sociologiska institutionen
Department of Sociology
SUDA
Stockholm University Demography Unit
Stockholms universitets demografiska avdelning
Demography not elsewhere classified
Sociology
2020-02-20 09:23:23
Preprint
https://su.figshare.com/articles/preprint/Resources_and_aspirations_during_the_Great_Recession_the_impact_on_the_transition_to_motherhood/11876391
Many studies show that labor
market uncertainties are important predictors of the postponement of
parenthood. While most existing studies investigate the consequences of the
deterioration of employment conditions in absolute terms, in this paper I test
the hypothesis that relative changes in occupational conditions affect
childbearing choices. In particular, I follow the Easterlin Hypothesis of
resources and aspirations to investigate how intergenerational mobility among
American women during the Great Recession affected their chances of becoming
mothers. Using respondents’ labor market trajectories from the PSID 2003-2017
data, I show that when women hold an occupational position as prestigious as
that held by their parents when they were growing up, they are more likely to
enter motherhood than when they hold a downward-mobile job. I further show that
this mechanism is stronger when aggregate labor market conditions deteriorate,
assumedly during the crisis. <br>