| This paper answers a specific research question: whether the child effect on mothers' employment diverged at the turn of the 21st century such that the effect of higher order births on employment became increasingly negative. In other words, did women with multiple children become even less likely to work during the economic recession of the early 2000s relative to women with only one child? I use Current Population Survey data from 1980 through 2007 to show that, indeed, relative to women with only one child in their family, the effect on employment of having multiple children became significantly more negative at the turn of the 21st century. The results detailed below underscore the importance of incorporating a measure of the number of children present when examining trends in women's work behaviors and they indicate that there is a lot to be learned from studying family and work behaviors during times of economic recession. |
