Is Baby a Blessing? Wantedness,Age at First Birth,and Later‐Life Depression

Research has found that both unintended and nonnormatively timed births have negative consequences, yet little is known about how birth timing and intention jointly influence mothers' mental health. This study explored how the interaction between intention and age at first birth influenced depression 5 to 13 years later by analyzing the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 2,573). We found that mistimed births, when compared with wanted births, were associated with depression, but only for normatively timed transitions to motherhood. Surprisingly, teen mothers who had unwanted births had better later‐life mental health than teens who had wanted or mistimed births. Among women with wanted or mistimed first births, increasing age at birth was associated with lower probabilities of depression. Most, but not all, of these effects were explained by selection factors and life circumstances. Results show the importance of examining joint effects of first birth wantedness and timing.     

Marriage or Carriage? Trends in Union Context and Birth Type by Education

Using data from 8,951 first‐time mothers in the National Survey of Family Growth, the authors analyzed trends in union contexts during the transition to motherhood by social class (proxied by maternal education). Conventional classifications of union contexts as married or cohabiting were extended by classifying births relative to union status at conception. The most conventional married birth type, in which the mother was married at conception and at birth, declined sharply, but only among low‐ and moderately educated women. Women with lower levels of education were instead more likely to have a birth in the context of a cohabiting union formed prior to conception. In 2005–2010, the adjusted probability of a low‐educated mother having a conventional married birth was 11.5%, versus 78.4% for highly educated mothers. The growing disparity in union type at first birth by social class may have implications for social and economic inequality.     

Childhood poverty, early motherhood and adult social exclusion

Childhood poverty and early parenthood are both high on the current political agenda. The key new issue that this research addresses is the relative importance of childhood poverty and of early motherhood as correlates of outcomes later in life. How far are the ‘effects’ of early motherhood on later outcomes due to childhood precursors, especially experience of childhood poverty? Subsidiary questions relate to the magnitude of these associations, the particular levels of childhood poverty that prove most critical, and whether, as often assumed, only teenage mothers are subsequently disadvantaged, or are those who have their first birth in their early twenties similarly disadvantaged? The source of data for this study is the National Child Development Study. We examine outcomes at age 33 for several domains of adult social exclusion: welfare, socio‐economic, physical health, emotional well‐being and demographic behaviour. We control for a wide range of childhood factors: poverty; social class of origin and of father; mother's and father's school leaving age; family structure; housing tenure; mother's and father's interest in education; personality attributes; performance on educational tests; and contact with the police by age 16. There are clear associations for the adult outcomes with age at first birth, even after controlling for childhood poverty and the other childhood background factors. Moreover, we demonstrate that the widest gulf in adult outcomes occurs for those who enter motherhood early (before age 23), though further rein‐forced by teenage motherhood for most adult outcomes. We also show that any experience of childhood poverty is clearly associated with adverse outcomes in adulthood, with reinforcement for higher levels of childhood poverty for a few outcomes.     

Assisted Reproductive Technology and Women’s Timing of Marriage and Childbearing

This paper exploited variation in mandated insurance coverage of assisted reproductive technology (ART) across US states and over time to examine the connection between the price of ART and women’s timing of family including marriage and child bearing in and out of wedlock. Duration and competing risks analyses were estimated to investigate the effects of ART insurance mandates on women’s timing of first marriage and first birth using the 1968–2009 Panel Study of Income Dynamics. The findings suggest that the mandates were associated with delayed marriage and childbearing at younger ages and an increased likelihood of marriage and motherhood at ages 30 and older, but only for college graduate women. For the full sample of women, the mandates were associated with an increased likelihood of marriage at ages 25 and older and motherhood within marriage after at ages 30 and older, but not with delay at younger ages. Results by race were similar to those for the full sample for Whites, but were generally less significant for Blacks. No significant effects of the mandates were found for out-of-wedlock childbearing.     

A multilevel perspective of the identity transition to motherhood

This study examines the identity transition of women when they become mothers and return to work. Twenty‐two first‐time mothers were interviewed at two points in time: just after giving birth and on re‐entry into employment after maternity leave. The findings suggest that this transition is influenced by multiple factors on different levels which include individual factors, such as partner support and career aspirations, organizational factors such as family‐friendly work practices and role models, and societal factors such as social norms and attitudes towards the maternal body. The findings highlight the importance of context by stressing the interrelated nature of factors on the micro‐, meso‐ and macro‐level in order to better understand the identity transition to motherhood.     

Age at first birth, health, and mortality

The biodevelopmental view sees the readiness and soundness of the organism at the time of first birth as its prime link to health and survival years and decades later. It suggests an optimum age at first birth shortly after puberty. The biosocial view emphasizes social correlates and consequences of age at first birth that may influence health and survival many years later. It suggests that better health and survival come from delaying motherhood as long as possible, perhaps indefinitely. Analyses consistently find patterns more in keeping with the biosocial view in a U.S. national sample of women ages 25 through 95. The fitted curves show high levels of current health problems among women who first gave birth in or shortly after puberty. Problems drop steadily the longer that first birth was delayed, up to about age 34, then rise increasingly steeply, particularly after about age 40. For women currently of the same age, the ratio of health problems expected given first birth under age 18 versus around age 34 equals that from currently being 14 years older. Health problems rise steeply with length of having delayed beyond age 40. Mortality hazard also declines with having delayed first birth well beyond the end of puberty. The ratio of mortality hazard between mothers with teenage versus late first births equals that from a 10-year difference in current age. Comparison to nonmothers of similar age and race/ethnicity shows that the correlation of motherhood with health problems and mortality hazard switches from detrimental to beneficial with delay beyond about age 22.     

Family-friendly benefits and full-time working mothers’ labor force persistence

Family-friendly benefits are intended to help mothers balance rather than juggle work and family. Prior research assumes that family-friendly benefits have a similar effect on mothers’ persistence in full-time work across parity. However, there is evidence that the transitions to first-time and second-time motherhood are qualitatively, as well as quantitatively, different experiences. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), we investigate women’s labor force status (full-time, part-time, and not working) after both parity transitions among women who were working in the labor force full-time prior to the birth of their first child. We find that mothers often persist in the same labor force status after the birth of their second child that they held after the birth of their first child, but there is wide variability in labor force and parity pathways. In addition, a wider array of family-friendly benefits is associated with second-time mothers’ full-time work than first-time mothers.     

Older Motherhood and the Changing Life Course in the Era of Assisted Reproductive Technologies

Midlife, once a focus of particular interest to gerontologists because of its implications for later life, has recently received little attention. But as new reproductive technologies have expanded in the United States, motherhood is occurring at older ages. While older motherhood is not a new social practice, what is unique is that an increasing number of women are becoming pregnant through technological means, often for the first time, at the end of their reproductive cycle. These women can be understood as part of a new middle age, engaging in new life course possibilities that respond to changing social, cultural, physical, and economic realities, and potentially extending much later in the life course. Drawing on interviews with 79 couples, we utilize symbolic interactionist conceptualizations of identity and stigma to consider how women negotiate the shifting social identities associated with older motherhood. We conclude that older motherhood will be one phenomenon contributing to an enduring change in views of what constitutes old age, and that it will be seen as occurring much later in the life course.     

Power of Teen Motherhood in Predicting Later Educational Attainment

Abstract

This article investigates the power of teen motherhood in predicting later educational attainment. Data for mothers are extracted from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79). Findings show that teen motherhood is inversely related to later educational attainment. Poverty, welfare receipt and the number of children have a direct influence on later educational attainment. Employment, the age of the woman at the time of her first marriage, and being married currently, had a direct positive influence on educational attainment. The implications for social work practice are discussed.     

The Discourse of Balance: Balance as Metaphor and Ideology

La combination du travail payé et la maternité est difficile parce que les institutions sociales sont basées sur la supposition que les deux sont toujous mutuellement exclusifs. Les mères qui travaillent gèrent la tension entre le travail et la maternité chaque jour, et quand elles le font, elles établissent des nouveaux modèles sociaux. Cette recherche présente les résultats d'une étude de 21 mères qui travaillent de la classe moyenne et soutient qu'elles ont été incapables de challenger l'organisation punitive du travail et de la maternité. Ces mères utilisent la métaphore de l’“équilibre” pour décrire comment elles gèrent la tension. Cependant, leurs récits des difficultés de gérer la maternité lorsque les méres travaillent décrit une autre histoire. En fait, l’“équilibre” est une idéologie qui fonctionne afin d'obscurcir la contradiction entre le travail et la maternité. Combining paid work and motherhood is difficult because social institutions are still based on the assumption that these are mutually exclusive. Working mothers manage the tension between work and motherhood daily, and as they do, they establish new social patterns. This paper reports on the findings of a study of 21 middle‐class working mothers and argues that they have been unable to challenge the punitive organization of work and motherhood. These mothers use the metaphor of “balance” to describe how they manage the tension. However, their narratives of the difficulties of managing working motherhood tell a different story. In fact, “balance” is an ideology, which functions to obscure the contradiction between work and motherhood.     

Passion,Submission and Motherhood: The Negotiation of Identity by Unmarried Innercity Chicanas*

This paper examines the negotiation of young unmarried women's sexual identities in the cultural context of an innercity Chicano community. Previous work often views the unmarried mother status as unproblematic, that is, as deviant or as equal to a married mother. Values are assumed to determine directly the evaluation of the status of unwed mother, and motherhood is viewed as an instrumental action. This analysis of premarital sex and motherhood suggests that motherhood plays an expressive role and that the evaluation of a young woman's sexual identity is not directly determined by her becoming premaritally pregnant and an unwed mother, but her identity is negotiated. In this negotiation process traditional values are blurred and changed. Here nonuse of birth control cannot be explained by lack of information or irrationality but must be understood as part of the process of developing a sexual identity within a particular cultural context. The relationship between behavior and identity is viewed as problematic and the construction and symbolization of this relationship in a public dialogue is the concern of this analysis.     

No right time: the significance of reproductive timing for younger and older mothers' moralities

Drawing on a small qualitative study of younger and older mothers, this article argues that the timing of motherhood is significant for the construction of classed maternal moralities. It is based on qualitative data generated during a year of fieldwork, with a group of mothers who had their first child when particularly younger or older than average. My discussion of mothers' accounts highlights the multitude of different ‘right’ times mothers evoked and their struggles to reconcile them. In particular I identify there were two normative and conflicting discourses about the ‘right’ time for motherhood the narrative of appropriately timed motherhood and the discourse of generational right time. This article highlights the classed dimensions of normative discourses about the timing of motherhood and draws attention to the lifecourse dis‐synchronicities which these two groups of women faced around becoming a mother, especially the older group for whom this had important intergenerational consequences.     

DIRECT AND INDIRECT EFFECTS OF RELIGION ON BIRTH TIMING:

The effect of being Catholic on first-birth timing (hereafter, birth timing) varies according to how the dependent variable is measured. When birth timing is measured as age at first birth, Catholics' is slower than non-Catholics'; measured as duration from marriage, Catholics' is more rapid. Structural equation models for discrete data showing these findings explain that Catholics marry later than non-Catholics. The direct effect of being Catholic is to speed birth timing, while the larger, indirect effect (through marital status) is to slow it.     

The Experience of Academic Non‐Mothers in the Gendered University

In this article we report on data from an empirical study concerned to explore the experience of women academics managing non‐motherhood and work in the gendered university. Although there is a growing body of work on the gendered experience of higher education in general and the experience of mothers as academics in particular, as yet there is little on non‐mothers and work. Drawing on our data we suggest that non‐mothers as well as mothers are affected by the ideology of motherhood and this has consequences for non‐mothers as workers within the academy. In addition to being perceived by students and other staff as ‘natural’ carers because they are women, academic non‐mothers are expected to put in the time and energy that mothers can not. However, as our data demonstrate, non‐mothers often have caring responsibilities outside the institution too. Overall, we argue that non‐motherhood needs to be recognized for the complex identity that it is.     

Does Biology Matter?: Lesbian Couples' Transition to Parenthood and Their Division of Labor

The effect of biological motherhood on parents' transition to parenthood and their division of labor is a much contested issue. This paper explores the impact of biological motherhood in a unique context—lesbian parenthood—where biological requirements can be analytically separated from gender effects. The analysis is based on a study of 25 middle-class lesbian couples' transition to parenthood and their division of labor. Each couple had at least one biological child under the age of six and all children were born within the context of the couples' relationship. I conducted in-depth interviews with each partner and all participants filled out a short questionnaire. The distinction between the biological and non-biological mother affected couples in three domains of motherhood: public, relational, and personal motherhood. Comothers countered public ignorance, social and legal invisibility, and the lack of biological connection to the child by sharing primary childcare and establishing a distinct parenting role within the family. The participants employed various models of the division of labor to provide one full-time mother for as long as economically possible. Desire to be with the child, economic considerations, and strong commitments to equality and shared motherhood rather than biological requirements informed decisions about leave strategies and long-term paid work arrangements. Time/availability proved to be the best predictor of involvement in family work. Conflicts erupted whenever one partner perceived the other as not doing her fair share of domestic work.     

Surrogate Motherhood:

The use of reproductive technology for surrogate motherhood arrangements facilitates the possibility that a child might have three mothers; a genetic, a gestational and a social mother. This possibility challenges the traditional legal definition of mother as the woman who gives birth to the child; a definition that emphasizes the mother/fetus relationship. State statutes and court cases are examined to identify what changes, if any, have occured in the legal definition of mother. Recognition of separation of roles is occurring, thus challenging the traditional legal definition of mother and the mother/fetus relationship.     

Residential Differences in Family Formation: The Significance of Cohabitation*

Abstract We update and extend prior research on residential differences in women's family formation experiences using data from the 1995 cycle of the National Survey of Family Growth. Residential differences in the timing of family formation behaviors are examined, including first birth, first cohabitation, and first marriage. Our study emphasizes the significance of cohabitation, estimating the effect of geographic residence on type of union formation (i.e., cohabitation versus marriage) and relationship context of first birth (i.e., cohabiting, married, or single). We find that (1) the timing of family formation behaviors, including marriage and childbearing, differs by residence; (2) nonmetro women are more likely to enter marriage and marry at younger ages than their metro counterparts; and (3) when marriage and cohabitation are presented as competing risks, nonmetro women are more likely to marry than cohabit both as a first union and a first birth context.     

How Early Life Religious Exposure Relates to the Timing of First Birth

This article examines intermediary processes explaining how religious socialization and involvement early in life are related to the timing of first births for women in the United States. The theory of conjunctural action forms the basis for hypotheses for how religious schemas and materials operate to influence birth timing. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data and event history methods, the study finds evidence for expected family size, work–family gender ideology, educational attainment and enrollment, cohabitation, and age at marriage as mediators of associations between early life religious exposure (affiliation and attendance) and the timing of nonmaritally and maritally conceived first births. These findings corroborate other research identifying the long reach of religious socialization and involvement in youth, elucidate some of the pathways for these connections, and motivate further work to understand linkages between religion and family behaviors in the United States.     

Fathers at Work: A Ghost in the Organizational Machine

This article first provides a review of fatherhood in the gender and organization literature on work and family, and the body and (in)visibility. It observes how organizational assumptions which frame fathers as breadwinners, ignoring their paternal role, remain extraordinarily persistent because policies (no matter how long established) do not necessarily change social attitudes and behaviours. The article then draws upon original qualitative data to demonstrate how while male workers may feel valued as employees, they often feel invisible at work in their paternal role. Fathers perceive that, while family‐friendly policies might in theory be available to ‘parents’ these are in practice targeted at working mothers. The article considers why working men's paternity is so often ignored, as though fathers are a ghost in the organizational machine. A recommendation for the establishment of a fatherhood and motherhood passport is made.     

Cash-Benefit Policy and Childbearing Decisions in Norway

This report analyzes Norway's childcare cash-benefit policy and its relation to fertility decision making among Norwegian women with respect to having a second child. Using information from Norwegian registers, which include information on education and birth timing, the study's focus was on the childcare cash-benefit policy introduced in 1998. Both acceptance of childcare cash benefits and subsequent fertility timing were strongly influenced by women's educational attainment. Norwegian couples chose different strategies concerning work, childcare, and childbearing. Those individuals who were associated with a home scenario, taking the maximum length of cash benefits, transitioned more quickly to a second birth than did others. In contrast, those individuals who were associated with a work scenario, taking none of the cash benefits, proceeded much later, whereas those associated with a mixed scenario, taking cash benefits for a shorter period, were less likely to have a second birth in the near-term but more likely later on. Mixed-scenario couples may have returned to work as a means to reestablish eligibility for parental leave benefits before having a second birth. Whereas the policy appears to have accelerated birth timing, it is not clear whether the policy has increased overall fertility levels.