Is there a wrong time for a right decision? the impact of the timing of first births and the spacing of second births on women's careers

Abstract

The issue of how to reconcile family and work is particularly relevant in the light of West Germany's institutional and normative framework which has been facilitating mothers of young children to withdraw from the labor market for some years. Though the topic has already been subject to academic debate, the questions remain if and how women's careers are influenced by the way women embed their prevalently two births into their employment biographies as well as if educational groups differ in these effects. So far, research has mainly focused on the first birth's timing: aspirations to establish firmly on the labor market suggest a postponement of the first birth to some degree. The effect is less obvious for the spacing between first and second births: to avoid a detrimental career discontinuity, women can either choose a short spacing, blocking their periods of unpaid caregiving tightly for a quick and definite occupational return, or space their births widely, intermitting their parental leaves with periods of employment. Using NEPS data for West German mothers of two, the study finds that compared to career entry, the occupational prestige at age 45 is severely impaired by the period after women's first birth. While this is not affected by a specific timing, higher educated women tend to time their first births least detrimentally. With regard to the spacing, evidence suggests that only higher educated women can achieve to continue their prestige accumulation, namely by spacing their births very tightly. Lower and intermediately educated women's prestige, in contrast, cannot be impaired considerably by their spacing behavior, unless they decide to return to part-time employment soon after their first birth.