Heather Joshi

Women's Employment Transitions Around Childbearing

The dynamics of women’s labour supply are examined at a crucial stage of the life-cycle. This paper uses the longitudinal employment history records for 3,893 33-year-old mothers in the 5th sweep of the 1958 National Child Development Study cohort. Models of binary recurrent events are estimated which correct for unobserved heterogeneity, using SABRE software. These models focus (a) on women’s first transition from first childbirth until the interview and (b) on all the monthly transitions. Evidence of a polarization was found between highly-educated, high-wage mothers and lower-educated, low-wage mothers.

Employment after childbearing and women's subsequent labour force participation: Evidence from the British 1958 birth cohort

Data on women from the British 1958 Cohort Study is used as evidence on the determinants of their labour force participation at age 33. A conventional cross-sectional model of full or part-time employment makes use of some longitudinal material not normally included in such models. Whether the woman made the hitherto customary break from. employment at the time of the first maternity is included in recognition that this cohort was among the first generation to be offered Statutory Maternity Leave. Results suggest that the presence of children (still) inhibits full-time employment and raises the probability of part-time employment; that income effects on participation have continued to weaken while wage elasticity for full-time employment is high. Continuity of employment straight after childbearing raises the chances of subsequent full-time employment, but by no means guarantees it. Gains from maternity leave and other family friendly employment policies have been far from uniform.

Is pay discrimination against young women a thing of the past? A tale of two cohorts

For nearly 20 years, equal treatment of men and women in the labour market has been enshrined in British law. This was due to the twin acts supporting this: the Equal Pay Act and the Sex Discrimination Act. There were amendments in 1983 to allow equal pay to be claimed in comparable, rather than identical, jobs. By the 1990s, therefore, pay discrimination against women ought to have become a thing of the past. Investigates whether this is so, taking evidence on men and women in their early 30s at two points during this period.