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European Sociological Review 16:137-157 (2000)
© 2000 Oxford University Press

The Effects of Children on Married and Lone Mothers' Employment in the United States and (West) Germany

Sonja Drobnic1

1 University of Bremen, EMPAS and Sfb 186, Postfach 330 440, 28334 Bremen, Germany

Correspondence: sdrobnic{at}sfb186.uni-bremen.de

This study focuses on the effects of children on the labour supply of married and lone mothers in the USA and Germany using individual-level longitudinal data and event-history analysis. Employment exits and (re-)entries are examined in various stages of the family life cycle in order to assess the impact of children of various ages on their mothers' employment patterns. Analyses based on the National Survey of Families and Households (USA) and the Socioeconomic Panel (Germany) show that lone mothers have in general equal or lower rates of work exits than married mothers, and equal or higher rates of employment (re-)entries when other factors are controlled. This high degree of work activity among lone mothers is often overlooked in debates that focus on the poverty and welfare dependency of lone-mother households. The differences between lone and married mothers are in general considerably greater in Germany than in the USA. Lone mothers in Germany rely more on full-time employment than married women, for whom part-time work is an important form of re-employment after employment interruptions. Also, in the USA part-time employment is associated only with married women as a way to reconcile employment and children. Finally, the timing of childbearing emerges as an important determinant of how women's careers evolve over the life course.


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