Economic theories predict that women are more likely to exit the labor force if their partners' earnings are higher and if their own wage rate is lower. In this article, I use the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 2,254) and discrete-time event-history analysis to show that wives' relative wages are more predictive of their exit than are…

Family migration has a negative impact on women's employment status. Using longitudinal data from the British Household Panel Survey (3,617 women; 22,354 women/wave observations) we consider two neglected issues. First, instead of relying on the distance moved to distinguish employment-related migrations, we use information on the reason for…

Over the past 50 years, women's roles have changed dramatically--a reality captured by substantial increases in employment and reductions in fertility. Yet, the social organization of work and family life has not changed much, leading to pervasive work-family conflict. Observing these strains, some scholars wonder whether U.S. women's high…

After a long decline, the Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) of older men in the United States leveled off in the 1980s, and began to increase in the late 1990s. We examine how changes in Social Security rules affected these trends. We attribute only a small portion of the decline from the 1960s-80s to the increasing generosity of Social…

With the rapid changes occurring in the role of work in women's lives, this research project was designed to examine the career planning, career decision making, and work history of women in both female-dominated and gender-neutral careers (U.S. Department of Labor, n.d.-a). A qualitative analysis of structured interviews identified 6 emerging…

Examined occupational patterns for women based on degree of participation in labor force over the 12-year period from ages 18 to 29-30. Used data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience with a resulting sample of 710 women who were 17 or 18 in 1968 or 1969. Seventeen career patterns were identified. (ABL)

Trends in the labor force participation rates of people with disabilities follow closely those of people of the same age and sex who are free from disabilities. In both groups, women fared better than men in the 1970-92 period. (Author)

The purpose of this qualitative study was to better understand the experience of wage-earning women in the context of rural economic restructuring. An ecological and life course theoretical framework was used. Nine community leaders and 17 wage-earning women residing in a rural northern Michigan county participated in semistructured interviews,…

New data from the Current Population Survey indicate that women have fewer years in their current occupations than men, a factor which affects the earnings disparity. (Author)

Examined simultaneous effects of multiple indicators of wife's employment on marital disruption for women (N=1,798) who first married between 1968 and 1982. Results indicated the rate and timing of marital disruption was negatively related to wife's income and positively related to number of hours worked per week and amount of premarital work…

According to a survey conducted in 1989, more than 7.2 million people held 2 or more jobs, an increase of 26 percent from 1985 and 52 percent from 1980. Women accounted for nearly two-thirds of the 1.5 million increase in multiple jobholders between 1985 and 1989. (Author)

One in 15 employed women was self-employed in her main job in 1990. The decision to become self-employed appears intricately linked with several other decisions for a woman--as an individual, as a household member, and over the course of her life. (Author)

Jewish Israeli women (n=6,018) were more likely to leave reduced-hour or part-time jobs than full-time jobs. New mothers were more likely to move to reduced-hour or part-time work. Women in female-dominated or peripheral occupations were more likely to reduce hours or quit. In the long term, part-time work was disadvantageous to women. (SK)

During business cycles, the distribution of jobs by sex and industry undergoes large shifts. These changes have a permanent effect on job distribution by sex. The shift to largely service occupations generally held by women and less demand for industries primarily staffed by men enabled women's employment growth to exceed that of men. (JOW)

Data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (1967-87) revealed little change in persistence of female labor supply because women have tended to become continuous workers, replacing continuous nonworkers. Periods of reduced hours are now less prolonged among older women. Employment patterns now appear to develop before marriage. (SK)