What it means to be successful in many careers today is best captured by Slaughter (2012): "The American definition of a successful professional is someone who can climb the ladder the furthest in the shortest time.... It is a definition well suited to the mid-20th century, an era when people had kids in their 20s, stayed in one job, retired…

Evidence is mounting that women in academia have disproportionately been affected by the pandemic. Recent research points to new gender gaps in productivity and publishing, with fewer women publishing articles and manuscripts. And in addition to these professional challenges, women in academia are also facing unique personal challenges during the…

Achieving prosperity for all Americans could not be more urgent. Although the United States remains the most prosperous nation on earth, millions of citizens are losing faith in the American dream of upward mobility, and in American-style capitalism itself. This crisis of confidence has widened the divide afflicting American politics and cries out…

In this article, the author offers some success secrets of the stars for fitting into one's research again after the baby. The author has some experience to share, having had her first child as a high school teacher, her second as an ABD (all-but-dissertation) graduate student, and now her third as an assistant professor at a research-intensive…

Recent trends in the labor force participation of women have brought much public attention to the issue of women opting out. This paper explores the decision of working women to exit the labor market at a time of major transition--the birth of a child--utilizing linked vital statistics, administrative employer, and state welfare records. The…

Increasingly women in nearly all sports are either leaving intercollegiate coaching or never entering in the first place. While most concern over women's sports has focused on the opportunities that federal equity laws have offered to female players--whose numbers have grown steadily--the ranks of female coaches have quietly dwindled. Last year…

A model of a household demand for childcare, mothers' labor force participation and mothers' working hours in Russia is presented. The simulations presented show that family allowance transfers intended as a means of reducing poverty do not have a significant effect on a household's choice of childcare arrangements.

Recent research has found that maternal employment is associated with worse child performance on tests of cognitive ability. This paper explores mechanisms for that correlation. We estimate models of instrumental variables using a unique dataset, the American Time Use Survey, that measure the effect of maternal employment on the mother's…

Documents the extent to which one-parent families tend to have social and economic characteristics that compare unfavorably with those of two-parent families. Lone fathers are shown to have a much more favorable profile than their female counterparts, but the latter show evidence of recent improvement. (Author/BL)

This paper develops and estimates a model for the choice of part-time and full-time employment and the decision to pay for childcare among single mothers. The results indicate that a lower childcare price and a higher full-time wage rate both lead to an increase in overall employment and the use of paid childcare. The part-time wage effects are…

The transitions of women into and out of part-time work were studied by examining the same women over time, using data from the Young Women's cohort of the National Longitudinal Surveys. Two groups of women were studied: those who were aged 29-33 in 1978 and those who were 29-33 in 1983. The labor force transitions of the two groups were compared…

This article was excerpted from the author's "The 7 Stages of Motherhood: Making the Most of Your Life as a Mom," published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2004. The author describes the experiences of several professional women, including herself, returning to work from maternity leave. The article examines the varied and sometimes ambivalent responses…

This article broadens our knowledge about family caregiving across the life course by examining caregiving and employment effects experienced by women with children with special needs, using data from a survey conducted in 1998-1999. Almost one fifth of the mothers provide at least 20 hours a week of home health care to these children. More than…

Writing that makes one think, writing that enriches one's understanding of the past and present, that's what Cokie Roberts' book, "We Are Our Mothers' Daughters" provides, and that, too, is what the authors of this issue of the "Journal of Women in Educational Leadership" provide. Roberts' background as a news analyst covering politics, Congress…

This chartbook focuses on women's economic activity including labor force trends, occupational and industrial employment patterns, unemployment, and market work of women in a family context. The 15 charts show that women play an important role in the labor market; women's participation has grown dramatically; a smaller proportion of women fill the…