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CC BY-NC-ND V4.0, Open Access
Dissertation
Antecedents of the Motherhood Penalty: A qualitative exploration of expectant mothers’ work-related preferences and plans across divergent socioeconomic contexts
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
2023
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000005097
Abstract
A vast body of evidence connects women’s child-rearing responsibilities to labor market behaviors that confer economic disadvantage. This “motherhood penalty” is unevenly experienced as mothers with socioeconomic privilege are more often structurally supported in combining work and motherhood. To better understand how socioeconomic status influences the labor market behaviors of mothers, this dissertation explores the antecedents of the motherhood penalty: how pregnant women think about and subsequently sculpt their postpartum work plans. In-depth interviews with sixty-one socioeconomically diverse expectant mothers revealed that women’s personal orientations to motherhood and to paid work converged to form a work-care orientation—representing varied preferences for combining (or not) paid work and mothering. As expectant mothers attempt to translate these internal preferences into actual postpartum work plans, they encounter a variety of structural factors that both support and constrain their preference-plan alignment. Notably, the “unicorn” women whose work plans most closely correspond to their preferences are buoyed by socioeconomic resources and supports at the policy and family level. Finally, the dissertation identifies two theoretically relevant precursors to the motherhood wage gaps: “pregnancy penalties” incurred as a direct result of the experience of gestating a child, and the extensive preparatory work predominantly performed by expectant mothers—what I deem “the invisible labor of pregnancy.” Taken together, this research paints a nuanced account of how expectant mothers arrive at work plans that subsequently incur or avoid financial impacts, with variation across socioeconomic contexts.
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Details
- Title
- Antecedents of the Motherhood Penalty
- Creators
- Sarah MORGAN Deming
- Contributors
- Julie Kmec (Advisor)Jennifer Sherman (Committee Member)Mariana Amorim (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Sociology, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 272
- Identifiers
- 99901019232701842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation