A new study debunks the claim that mothers are "opting out" of the workforce. Heather Boushey, Ph.D., a leading feminist economist at the Center for Economic Policy Research, studied data from the Current Population Survey's Annual Social and Economic Survey (ASEC) to examine whether children have caused women to exit employment.
Her conclusion: There is no statistical evidence that women are dropping out because of children.

The child effect was -21.8 percentage points in 1979 and has fallen consistently over the last two decades to -12.7 percentage points in 2005...Recent declines in women's employment may be more an effect of the weak labor market for all women, mothers and non-mothers, rather than an increase in mothers voluntarily choosing to exit employment.

Ever since Lisa Belkin's story about the "opt out revolution" was published in The New York Times in 2003, there has been a raging debate about whether educated mothers are, in fact, dropping out. I've heard any number of arguments from feminist scholars. Some don't dispute that educated mothers are dropping out but suggest that they are forced out--by an inhospitable workplace. Others argue that the only a small sliver of elite women actually can have this "choice"--the vast majority don't have the option to opt out and aren't doing so. Still others don't question that this is a trend but suggest that women who opt out are putting themselves in economic jeopardy or just betraying the feminist revolution.

I sincerely doubt that this study is going to put an end to the debate. Boushey has been giving interviews about her research for nearly two years (see this 2005 story that was buried in the New York Times. Why the Times buried it, after trumpeting the trend to begin with, is another story.) But one question I have:

Does this research take into account the fact that many mothers downshift--go to part-time or less time-consuming jobs--after having kids? (I'm always surprised by the number of mothers I meet in my suburban town who work "one or two days" a week, or only five hours a day.) I understand why mothers take these jobs, but typically, they don't pay well and put women on permanent slow tracks, which perpetuates all kinds of inequality. (Really, these mommy track jobs aren't all that different from my mothers' peers who worked as travel agents or realtors in the 1970s.

Labels: mothers, opting out

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