Contextual Understanding of Lower Fertility Among U.S. Women in Professional Occupations

Abstract

Despite decades of research indicating that employed women in the United States have fewer children than other women, it remains unclear what it is about work, beyond work hours, that constrains fertility. The current study links a sample of 1,800 women of childbearing age who are employed at least part-time from the National Survey of Fertility Barriers with the Department of Labor’s Occupational Information Network to examine how characteristics of women’s jobs are associated with their fertility intentions and behaviors. Results indicate that women who work in more professional jobs (e.g., occupations with greater prestige, autonomy, complexity, and supervisory characteristics) are more likely to postpone childbearing than women employed in jobs with lower scores on professional characteristics. Women in more professional jobs do not want fewer children, however, and they report higher intentions to give birth. These findings suggest that women in more professional jobs face greater barriers to having children that they want to have.

Keywords

work characteristics occupational characteristics fertility motherhood work–family fertility intentions postpone

Introduction

For decades, researchers have noted the negative relationship between women’s paid employment and fertility (e.g., Cramer, 1980). Although overall fertility rates in the United States have held constant at around replacement level (2.1 births per woman) since the early 1990s, women who are employed full time and who have higher levels of educational attainment continue to report lower completed fertility (Monte & Ellis, 2014). This has important implications for future fertility trends, as women now outpace men in obtaining college and graduate degrees (Bank, 2011). While fertility is known to vary among women in the professional careers of academia, law, and medicine (Wolfinger, Goulden, & Mason, 2010), it is unclear how working in a career with professional characteristics is associated with women’s childbearing preferences and behaviors. Dominant theories argue that factors such as role incompatibility (Brewster & Rindfuss, 2000), or a “schema of work devotion,” in which work is central to employee’s lives (Blair-Loy, 2003), might make it difficult or less desirable for women to combine work and childbearing. It remains unclear, therefore, whether professional women might have fewer children because of structural barriers (e.g., high work hours) or whether the nature of the work does not encourage women to give birth. The primary goal of this study is to determine whether women working in professional jobs have lower fertility intentions and behaviors, as well as to explore potential reasons for differences by examining the associations between professional work characteristics, work hours, life course situation, culture/values, and fertility intentions, desired family size, and postponement of childbearing among employed women in the United States using data from the National Survey of Fertility Barriers (NSFB) linked with occupational characteristics data from the Department of Labor’s Occupational Information Network.

Employment and Fertility Relationships

Professional careers and families have been called “greedy institutions,” each demanding undivided commitment (Coser, 1974; also see Blair-Loy, 2003; Williams, 2000). The maternal role incompatibility hypothesis suggests that women’s labor force participation reduces fertility because of the unique demands on time, energy, and resources of each role; incompatibility is affected by factors related to the availability and costs of high-quality child care, as well as family supports (Brewster & Rindfuss, 2000). Despite the dramatic increases in women’s labor force participation, they continue to do the majority of housework and child care even when they are employed full time (Bianchi, Milkie, Sayer, & Robinson, 2000; Coltrane, 2000). With the intensive mothering ideology pressuring mothers to devote all available time and energy to their children (Hays, 1996) on one hand and the ideal worker norm encouraging the same devotion and long hours to a career (Williams, 2000) on the other, professional women become torn between these “competing devotions” (Blair-Loy, 2003). It is not surprising, therefore, that employed women have fewer children. As the proportion of professional women working more than 50 hours per week has increased, particularly for women born after 1956 (Percheski, 2008), the considerable time demands of professional jobs may prevent women from having as many children as they want to have.

In addition, employed mothers may fear being perceived as on the “mommy track” (Crittenden, 2001) and indeed often experience a “motherhood wage penalty,” meaning that career advancement and future wages are often reduced by having children—a penalty that increases with more children (Budig & England, 2001). An increasing proportion of college-educated women are waiting to have children until they are in their 30s (Martin, 2000), which may be a successful strategy against the motherhood wage penalty (Amuedo-Dorantes & Kimmel, 2005)—particularly for women in professional occupations (Miller, 2011), but it can also result in foregone fertility (Morgan, 1982; Morgan & Rackin, 2010). Furthermore, nearly one in five women remains childless, which is explained in large part by increases in educational attainment and decreases in marriage (Hayford, 2013). Hakim (2003) and Blair-Loy (2003) suggest that for many women in professional occupations, the intrinsic nature of the jobs and extrinsic rewards such as high income and career advancement discourage childbearing because these women do not believe they can fully invest in both their careers and in having children.

Previous research on the relationship between women’s employment and their fertility has largely focused on work hours. Using data from the 1974 to 1994 National Longitudinal Study of Youth, Budig (2003) found that both part-time and full-time employment reduce the likelihood of giving birth, but intentions were not included in her analyses. Furthermore, she did not fully explore potential reasons for the relationship beyond part- or full-time work status, though she did include percent female in the occupation (not significant in the analysis predicting the hazard of pregnancy). Interacting work hours with fertility intentions and career importance, Shreffler and Johnson (2013) found that fertility intentions (in either direction) are more predictive of birth probability for women who work more hours, and that women have the lowest probability of giving birth when they work many hours and place a high importance on their career. Thus, fertility intentions might be particularly salient for women who work more hours, and women who place higher value on their careers are less likely to give birth. In a study using data from Sweden, Kaufman and Bernhardt (2012) found that workplace flexibility and policies promoting parental leave or the possibility dropping to part-time work status are associated with higher fertility intentions. Although the role of women’s job characteristics have largely not been explored in the employment/fertility relationship, Hewlett’s (2002) qualitative study of highly successful women suggests that women in professional careers may have fewer children because of time demands as well as not wanting to sacrifice an enjoyable career or experience career penalties to have children.

Considering Work Characteristics in the Employment/Fertility Relationship

Research has yet to examine the link between women’s work characteristics and fertility (or many other family-related outcomes), in part because of data limitations. Family scientists often use secondary data sets, which normally do not include detailed information about a wide variety of occupational characteristics as well as psychosocial outcomes (Crouter, Lanza, Pirretti, Goodman, & Neebe, 2006). Much of the research exploring occupational characteristics have therefore been limited to studies of a particular occupation or a particular work characteristic. A variety of occupational characteristics that influence individual well-being have been identified, however. Jobs with professional characteristics have been identified as key predictors of a number of individual outcomes related to family formation.

There are several indicators of “professional” work characteristics that have been previously identified. Occupational prestige is one of the most widely studied occupational characteristics in sociological research, with important implications for fertility; cross-national comparative evidence suggests a strong link between occupational prestige and childlessness (Koropeckyj-Cox & Call, 2007). Autonomy and complexity are two important indicators of professional occupations (Zacher & Frese, 2009). Autonomy refers to the degree of freedom that employees have in making job-related decisions (Frese, 1989). Complexity refers to the extent to which jobs provide employees with opportunities for stimulating and challenging responsibilities (Fried, Melamed, & Ben-David, 2002). Working in occupations that are more complex and autonomous benefits not only the individual but his or her family as well because they enable employees to structure their jobs in a way that can promote a greater balance between job and family demands (Greenhaus & Parasuraman, 1986). Supervisory positions offer control over the work process and over others’ work and increase both extrinsic rewards such as income and intrinsic rewards such as interpersonal recognition, fostering greater well-being (Ross & Mirowsky, 1996), and fewer job-related stressors (Liu, Spector, & Shi, 2007). Prior research has combined indicators of professional characteristics into one work characteristics indicator (e.g., Frese, Garst, & Fay, 2007; Karasek & Theorell, 1990; Zacher & Frese, 2009) when they are highly correlated and reflective of jobs with greater decision making (Zacher & Frese, 2009).

The childbearing plans and behaviors of women working in professional occupations are expected to be affected in numerous ways. Women who work in many professional occupations are more likely to work longer hours (Blair-Loy, 2003), and following previous research on work hours and fertility (e.g., Budig, 2003; Shreffler & Johnson, 2013) and the maternal role incompatibility argument (Brewster & Rindfuss, 2000), women who work full time are expected to be more likely to have postponed childbearing and to have fewer children. Similarly, women who work in jobs with professional characteristics are expected to be more likely to have postponed childbearing and to have fewer children. The associations between work hours and professional characteristics and fertility intentions and ideal number of children are less clear, however. Some have argued that motherhood may be less important to career-oriented women (e.g., those typically working in professional careers; Hakim, 2003), suggesting that women in professional careers may intend to have fewer children overall, but McQuillan, Greil, Shreffler, and Tichenor (2008) found a positive relationship between career importance and motherhood importance for both mothers and childless women. Moreover, although women with higher levels of educational attainment are increasingly unlikely to meet their desired fertility intentions (Morgan & Rackin, 2010), higher levels of education has not been linked to desires for fewer children (Quesnel-Vallée & Morgan, 2003).

Relevant Sociodemographic and Attitudinal Mediating Characteristics for Fertility Plans and Behaviors

Sociodemographic characteristics may provide additional insights regarding variations in the relationship between professional job characteristics and fertility plans and behaviors. Marital status, for example, has been an important predictor of childbearing intentions and births in the United States (Schoen, Astone, Kim, Nathanson, & Fields, 1999); however, the recent dramatic increase in nonmarital births suggests that at least some births outside of marriage are now intended. This may be especially true for minority women and those from disadvantaged backgrounds, because the proportion of nonmarital births is particularly high among these groups (Monte & Ellis, 2014). There is also evidence that attitudes regarding nonmarital childbearing have changed among higher socioeconomic status individuals as well. A qualitative study of 24 childless cohabitors with at least some postsecondary schooling found that, while marriage remains a prerequisite to childbearing for many, a minority of cohabitors express the view that marriage does not have to precede having children (Sassler & Cunningham, 2008). In general, however, fertility intentions (Musick, 2007) and intended pregnancies (McQuillan, Greil, & Shreffler, 2010) remain lower for cohabiting women than for married women, suggesting that the notion that marriage should precede childbearing remains normative. Thus, married women are expected to have a higher ideal family size, higher fertility intentions, and to be less likely to be postponing childbirth than cohabiting or single women.

Age is another life course factor expected to be related to fertility plans and behaviors. Older women are expected to have more children and lower current fertility intentions; not only are older women more likely to have already met their fertility intentions than younger women there are social norms regarding appropriate ages to give birth (Settersten & Hägestad, 1996).

Parity is likely also related to current intentions and ideal number of children. Norms regarding the number of children are an important consideration; the vast majority of American women have reported two or three children as the ideal number for decades (Hagewen & Morgan, 2005). Several decades ago, demographers highlighted the importance of considering intentions to be “parity specific,” and this continues to guide current fertility research. For example, Morgan (1982) found a declining likelihood that women intend more births at Parities 2 through 5. These changes reflect age-graded experiences. Younger women are more influenced by normative expectations and general preferences, and older women are more influenced by practical considerations and constraints of children (Hagewen & Morgan, 2005). Following prior research, it is expected that older women will have lower current fertility intentions and that they will report a lower ideal number of children.

Culture and values are often utilized as key predictors in studies of fertility and fertility intentions as well. There is evidence that White women are more likely to postpone childbearing (Martin, 2000), and Black and Hispanic women tend to give birth at younger ages and to have more children overall (Livingston & Cohn, 2010). Black and Hispanic women are less likely to be actively trying not to get pregnant (McQuillan et al., 2010); they may feel more social pressure to have children, or experience greater gains in social capital than White women (Schoen, Kim, Nathanson, Fields, & Astone, 1997).

Hakim’s (2003) preference theory emphasizes attitudes regarding the importance of work and motherhood as influences on fertility intentions and fertility behavior. As aforementioned, Shreffler and Johnson (2013) found that fertility intentions are more salient for women who report higher importance of their careers. McQuillan, Greil, Shreffler, and Bedrous (2015) found that the importance of motherhood is a strong predictor of fertility intentions. Religious beliefs and gender ideologies are also both important cultural/value factors that are likely to influence fertility plans and behaviors. Greater religiosity is associated with higher fertility intentions (Hayford & Morgan, 2008) and viewing childlessness as less acceptable (Koropeckyj-Cox & Pendell, 2007), and more traditional gender ideologies are associated with higher fertility intentions and earlier births (Barber, 2001; Kaufman, 2000).

Statement of the Problem

Much of the research on the negative relationship between women’s employment and their fertility has focused largely on the effects of employment status and work hours, work–family conflict, and role incompatibility. However, research from the organizational and psychological fields suggests that certain characteristics about the specific jobs worked by individuals affect various family and individual outcomes and must be considered in work–family research (Crouter et al., 2006). Specifically, what is it about work that reduces fertility? Thus far, the extent of research in the employment/fertility relationship focusing on work hours or work status assumes structural barriers—particularly in terms of available time—but qualitative studies suggest that there might be something about the nature of professional jobs that include rewards that are greater than perceived rewards of childbearing. Therefore, while controlling for work hours, this study examines how the work characteristics associated with professional occupations are associated with current fertility intentions, ideal family size, and postponement of childbearing, providing a first look at how professional women’s work characteristics are related to their childbearing plans and behaviors.

The primary challenge researchers face when attempting to analyze the effects of occupational characteristics is measurement (Crouter et al., 2006). Most large surveys simply do not include detailed information about occupations, and those that do might not include a large variety of outcome variables. Therefore, due to data limitations, research has typically examined only one characteristic at a time, or it has examined numerous characteristics of a specific occupation. Additionally, virtually all studies of the effects of occupational characteristics have relied on respondent’s self-reports of their occupational characteristics, which can create bias. It is not clear the extent to which worker perceptions correlate with objective work conditions (Spector & Fox, 2003); perceptions are affected by mood and temperament (Brief, Burke, George, Robinson, & Webster, 1988), and by the attitudes, opinions, and perceptions of others, rather than just the nature of the job itself (Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978). This study overcomes potential bias associated with worker perceptions by utilizing aggregate data on occupational characteristics.

Data and Method

Sample

Data for this study combine information from two publicly available data sets. The NSFB is a nationally representative random digit dialing telephone survey of women ages 25 to 45. The data set includes an oversample of minority respondents, women with infertility, and women at risk for experiencing infertility. Therefore, data are weighted in this study so that the final sample is representative of the U.S. population of women aged 25 to 45 years. Two advantages of using this data set for the current study are that (a) open-ended responses regarding employment title and description provided the information necessary to identify U.S. Department of Labor job codes for the many occupations respondents listed in the NSFB (500) and (b) the recency of the data collection provides contemporary information regarding women’s employment, including variables such as hours worked per week and occupation, as well as a wide variety of variables focusing on women’s fertility intentions, barriers, and behaviors.

The primary aim of this article is to examine how professional occupational characteristics of American women are related to their childbearing plans and behaviors. To do so, occupational characteristics assessed by the Department of Labor were linked with data from the first half of the NSFB data set (N = 1,800; conducted in 2005-2006). The Department of Labor developed the Occupational Information Network, or O*Net, to replace the outdated Directory of Occupational Titles and was first released in 1998. O*Net is continually updated on skill requirements and job characteristics for over 950 jobs in the United States and is available online (http://online.onetcenter.org/) as a resource for jobseekers, students, guidance counselors, and employees (Peterson et al., 2001). The primary strength of O*Net for work–family research is the rich information provided about jobs. While O*Net provides hundreds of work characteristics, the present study focuses on characteristics previously associated with working in professional jobs. To link the two data sets, first the O*Net occupational code was identified based on NSFB respondents’ title and job descriptions, and then the data were merged in SAS using the O*Net occupational code.

Measures

Fertility Plans and Behaviors

The dependent variable for this study, fertility intentions, is based on two questions that are combined to create a continuous variable. Respondents were asked, “Do you intend to have a baby?” and “Of course, sometimes things do not work out exactly as we intend them to, or something makes us change our minds. In your case, how sure are you that you will/will not have a child?” Responses were coded so that low scores indicate very sure do not intend (1) to high scores of very sure do intend (7). Cases who reported that they do not know their intentions are coded as 4 (the center of the scale). Ideal number of children is also a continuous variable and was measured by the response to the question, “The next question asks about the number of children you consider ideal for yourself. This could be more or less than you already have or more or less than you expect to have. If you yourself could choose exactly the number of children to have in your whole life, how many would you choose?” Responses greater than or equal to 3 were coded as 3; thus, the variable ranges from 0 to 3. Currently postponing is a dichotomous variable based on responses to three survey questions, with 1 indicating women who are at least 30 years of age, childless, and report an ideal number of children to be greater than 0. Analyses using this as a dependent variable are restricted to women of 30 years and older.

Employment Variables

A professional characteristics scale was created using four characteristics (occupational prestige, autonomy, supervision responsibilities, and complexity) that factor analysis indicated loaded as one construct (alpha reliability = .91), following Zacher and Frese’s (2009) example. Each of the original four characteristics were based on O*Net’s coding system and were linked to the NSFB data via occupational titles and descriptions of each respondent’s main job. Because the four characteristics used different scales, all items were standardized to create a combined continuous score ranging from −10.67 to 6.94, with a mean of 0. Occupational prestige was a variable calculated by the Department of Labor (ranging from 1 to 5) based on four criteria: workers have opportunity for advancement, workers receive recognition for the work they do, workers on this job give directions and instructions to others, and the extent to which workers on this job are looked up to by others in their company and community. Autonomy was a scale composed of three items (the extent they are allowed to try out their own ideas, make decisions on their own, and plan their work with little supervision) and had a Cronbach’s alpha reliability of .96. The extent to which an occupation provides opportunities to supervise others included six items: coordinating the work and activities of others, developing and building teams, training and teaching others, guiding and directing subordinates, coaching and developing others, and providing consultation and advice to others (alpha reliability = .76). The construct of occupational complexity included five items: decision making and solving problems, updating and using relevant knowledge, developing strategies or objectives, scheduling work and activities, and organizing, planning, and prioritizing work (alpha reliability = .92). The NSFB survey did not ask women their number of hours, just their work status, so employed full time is a dichotomous variable where 1 = the respondent is employed full time (35 hours per week or more) and 0 = employed at a part-time job.

Sociodemographic Variables¹

Union status is coded into two indicator variables: married or cohabiting, with single (i.e., no partner in the household) as the reference category. Age is centered on the mean age of the women in the sample (35.18). Number of children is included as a continuous variable ranging from 0 (no children) to 3 (three or more children).

Culture/Values

Race/ethnicity was measured by three indicator variables (Black, Hispanic, or “Other race” compared with non-Hispanic White). Importance of motherhood was constructed by averaging responses to five questions measured on Likert-type scales (strongly agree to strongly disagree), for example: “Having children is important to my feeling complete as a woman,” and “I always thought I would be a parent.” The Cronbach’s alpha was high (α = .86, for the entire sample). Two subjective measures of the costs of parenthood are included. Valuing work success is a dummy variable measuring responses to the question, “How important is being successful in my line of work?” 1 = very important. Valuing leisure is based on the response to “How important is having leisure to enjoy my own interests?” (1 = very important). Religiosity was measured by four questions: (a) “How often do you attend religious services?” (b) “About how often do you pray?” (c) “How close do you feel to God most of the time?” and (d) “In general, how much would you say your religious beliefs influence your daily life?” The items were normalized and averaged; they form a single factor and have a high reliability (α = .78). Traditional gender role ideology is a two-item index developed by the NSFB (Johnson et al., 2009). Respondents were asked how much they agreed with the following statements: “It is much better for everyone if the man earns the main living and the woman takes care of the home and family” and “If a husband and a wife both work full time, they should share household tasks equally.” Items were coded so that high scores represent more traditional (vs. egalitarian) gender role ideology.

Analytic Strategy

Descriptive analyses estimate differences in study variables for women working in jobs with the highest and lowest quartiles of professional characteristics. Means and standard deviations are presented, and chi-square tests for categorical variables and analysis of variance tests for continuous variables were conducted to determine the significance of differences between means. Ordinary least squares regression models the associations between professional work characteristics and current fertility intentions and ideal number of children. Logistic regression is used to determine the associations between professional work characteristics and currently postponing a first birth. The logistic regression analysis was restricted to women in the sample older than 30 years of age. All independent and control variables are included in the models, and continuous variables are centered on their means.

Results

Descriptive Statistics

Means and standard deviations of the study variables are presented in Table 1 for women working in jobs with the highest and lowest quartiles of professional characteristics, along with chi-square and analysis of variance tests to determine significant group differences. The findings suggest a significant difference (p < .05) in currently intending and currently postponing. While average intentions are below the midpoint of 4 for both groups of women (indicating that most women in the sample were not intending a birth), intentions are significantly higher for women in professional jobs. In addition, a quarter of women older than 30 who work in more professional jobs are currently postponing (i.e., childless but stating that at least one child is ideal for them), compared with 14% of women older than 30 in less professional jobs.

Table 1.

Study Differences Between Women in the Top and Bottom Quartiles of Professional Occupations, Weighted.

Variable	Low professional (N = 459)		High professional (N = 449)		p
Variable	M	SD	M	SD	p
Fertility
Currently intending	2.82	2.34	3.46	2.42	***
Ideal number of children	2.57	1.03	2.53	1.00
Currently postponing^a	0.14	0.35	0.25	0.44	**
Employment
Employed full time	0.74	0.44	0.84	0.37	**
Sociodemographic variables
Single	0.27	0.44	0.27	0.44
Cohabiting	0.14	0.35	0.09	0.29	*
Married	0.59	0.49	0.64	0.48
Age	34.99	6.02	34.69	6.01
Total number of children	1.56	1.41	1.23	1.23	***
Culture/values
White	0.45	0.50	0.65	0.48	***
Black	0.23	0.42	0.14	0.35	**
Hispanic	0.22	0.42	0.11	0.32	***
Other race	0.03	0.16	0.04	0.20
Importance of motherhood	3.16	0.68	3.24	0.71
Importance of career success	0.47	0.50	0.55	0.50	*
Importance of leisure	0.40	0.49	0.46	0.50
Traditional ideology	1.92	0.53	1.68	0.52	***
Religious	0.06	0.87	−0.13	0.94	**

Note. Chi-square performed for categorical variables, analysis of variance for continuous variables.

Analyses were restricted to women in the sample older than 30 years.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

In addition to the fertility variables, there are other significant differences by professional characteristics. Respondents working in more professional jobs are more likely to work full time (compared with part time; 84% vs. 74%, respectively), and they are less likely to be in a cohabiting union (9% vs. 14%). There are considerable differences by race/ethnicity as well; whereas the majority (65%) of the women working at more professional jobs are White (14% are Black and 11% are Hispanic), the proportions of Black and Hispanic women working in less professional jobs are much higher (23% and 22% of women in less professional jobs are Black and Hispanic, compared with 45% of women who are White). Women who work in more professional jobs also report a greater importance of career success, report less traditional gender ideology, and are less religious.

Multivariate Analyses

Results from the ordinary least squares regression analyses are presented in Table 2, and findings from the logistic regression analyses are presented in Table 3. As the study hypotheses span both tables, findings are discussed by hypothesis rather than by table. As expected, analyses reveal that professional characteristics are significantly associated with postponement and current intentions. Controlling for sociodemographic and culture/values, women working in jobs with more professional characteristics are 10% more likely to be currently postponing their first birth (odds ratio = 1.10, p < .001). They also report higher current fertility intentions (b = 0.03, p < .001), suggesting that they have not yet achieved their intended parity. Interestingly, full-time employment is associated with lower current fertility intentions (b = −0.15, p < .05). It is possible that some of the women working full time formed families early and now can focus on careers; on the other hand, women who are currently employed full time are also more than twice as likely to be currently postponing childbearing. These seemingly contradictory associations may reflect mothers’ increasing employment as their children age, as well as increasing income demands, whereas current postponement may reflect continued role incompatibility for some women.

Table 2.

Summary of Weighted Linear Regression Analyses Predicting Women’s Current Fertility Intentions and Desired Family Size by Work Characteristics, Controlling for Sociodemographic and Culture/Values Variables (N = 1,800).

Variables	Currently intending		Ideal number of children
Variables	b	SE	b	SE
Employment variables
Professional characteristics	0.03***	0.01	0.00	0.01
Employed full time	−0.15*	0.07	−0.01	0.06
Sociodemographic variables
Union (single)
Cohabiting	0.23*	0.10	−0.07	0.08
Married	0.13	0.07	0.06	0.05
Age	−0.11***	0.00	−0.01***	0.00
Number of children	−0.54***	0.03	0.21***	0.02
Culture/values
Race/ethnicity (White)
Black	0.33***	0.08	0.06	0.06
Hispanic	0.40***	0.08	0.35***	0.06
Other race	0.08	0.15	0.47***	0.12
Importance of motherhood	0.44***	0.04	0.44***	0.03
Importance of career success	−0.07	0.06	−0.04	0.05
Importance of leisure	−0.07	0.06	0.00	0.05
Religious	0.07*	0.03	0.11***	0.03
Traditional roles ideology	−0.11*	0.05	0.14**	0.04
Constant	−0.01	0.09	2.19***	0.07
Adjusted R²	.47		.27

Note. SE = standard error.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Table 3.

Summary of Weighted Logistic Regression Analyses Predicting Women’s Current Postponement Status by Work Characteristics, Controlling for Sociodemographic, and Culture/Values Variables (N = 1,400).

Variables	Currently postponing^a
Variables	OR	SE
Employment variables
Professional characteristics	1.10***	0.02
Employed full time	2.37***	0.23
Sociodemographic variables
Union (single)
Cohabiting	0.65	0.26
Married	0.32***	0.16
Age	0.96**	0.02
Culture/values
Race/ethnicity (White)
Black	0.54**	0.21
Hispanic	0.50**	0.24
Other race	0.84	0.41
Importance of motherhood	0.49***	0.10
Importance of career success	0.73*	0.16
Importance of leisure	1.39*	0.16
Religious	0.97	0.08
Traditional roles ideology	0.99	0.14
Constant	0.26***	0.25
Adjusted R²	.22

Note. OR = odds ratio; SE = standard error.

Analyses were restricted to women in the sample older than 30 years.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Several sociodemographic variables are significantly associated with fertility plans and behaviors as well. Women who are married are not significantly likely to have higher intentions, as expected, whereas cohabiting women do. This may reflect the older mean age of the women in the sample; by 35 years, perhaps the married women—those living in the normative union in which to bear children—have done so. As many cohabiting women want to be married before they have children (Musick, 2007), they have not yet met their fertility intentions. Married women also are nearly 70% less likely to be currently postponing than single women. As expected, older women have lower current fertility intentions and report a lower number of children as ideal for them. Findings partially support expectations about parity; the more children women have given birth to, the lower their current fertility intentions, supporting prior research by Morgan and colleagues (Morgan, 1982; Morgan & Rackin, 2010). Furthermore, as number of children increases, ideal number of children increases. Perhaps women with more than the normative number of children increase their ideal number so that it does not appear that any of their children were unwanted, or perhaps women with a higher ideal were able to meet it; without longitudinal data, the causality is unclear.

Many of the expectations regarding culture and values were supported as well. Black and Hispanic women are about half as likely as White women to be currently postponing childbearing, and Hispanic women report a higher ideal number of children. Yet Black and Hispanic women reported higher current fertility intentions, which was not expected. More investigation into this relationship is needed; do Black and Hispanic women space their births out over a larger time span than White women? If having a new partner increases fertility intentions, does this finding reflect the higher number of relationship transitions that Black and Hispanic women experience? As expected, the importance of motherhood is associated with current intentions to give birth and reporting a higher number of children as ideal. The importance of motherhood is also associated with a lower likelihood of currently postponing, suggesting that women who view motherhood as more important may be more likely to plan their pregnancies and to ensure that they do not delay postponing until fertility is foregone. Women who view leisure as very important are more likely to postpone their childbearing. Unexpectedly, women who view career success as very important are less likely to be currently postponing. The unexpected direction is likely due to the nature of the cross-sectional data; respondents reported on current importance of work success—after the majority have completed their childbearing—rather than on the importance of work success before they had children. The importance of being successful in a career after one has children may reflect financial need rather than devotion to one’s career or a preference for work (e.g., Blair-Loy, 2003; Hakim, 2003). Finally, women who are more religious and have a more traditional gender roles ideology report a higher ideal number of children, as expected. In addition, women who are more religious have higher current fertility intentions, whereas more traditional women have lower fertility intentions.

Discussion and Conclusion

Despite a large body of research and theoretical considerations regarding the negative relationship between women’s employment and fertility, little is known regarding the reasons for the relationship beyond work hours. Researchers have not previously investigated how professional work characteristics are associated with women’s fertility intentions or behaviors. To address this gap, this study examines the associations between professional work characteristics and work status with women’s childbearing plans and ideals and postponement of childbearing.

The findings presented here highlight the importance of work characteristics in employed women’s fertility, as well as other contextual factors that have been the focus of prior research on fertility intentions and behaviors but not linked to work context. Women who work in more professional jobs with characteristics of high autonomy, complexity, prestige, and supervision responsibilities are more likely to postpone having children than women employed in jobs that are less professional. Interestingly, women in professional jobs do not want fewer children, however, and they are more likely to currently intend to give birth (whereas full-time employment is associated with lower fertility intentions). These findings lend support for the maternal role incompatibility theory, which suggests that there are opportunity costs to childbearing for women in more professional careers and that the high demands of professional careers make it difficult to balance work and childbearing. Additionally, results from the descriptive analyses revealed that although they view career success as more important than women in less professional jobs, women in more professional jobs do not view motherhood as less important. These findings suggest that women in more professional jobs face greater barriers to having children that they want to have.

This study has several limitations, however. First, the study is limited by cross-sectional data; it is therefore impossible to draw a definitive conclusion about causal direction. Yet the analyses focus on current work characteristics and current fertility plans and behaviors. While it is possible that women may change their occupations to better match their fertility intentions and behaviors, and indeed some professional “opt out” of professional careers to have children (Stone, 2007), findings show that many women in more professional jobs, at an average age of 35 years, have not yet met their fertility intentions. Due to the association between educational attainment and professional careers (Richardson & Sandoval, 2014) and continuing increases in female educational attainment (Bank, 2011), further research is needed to determine factors that might enable women in professional careers to meet their intentions, such as workplace practices and policies supporting parental leave and work–family balance (Kaufman & Bernhardt, 2012). Furthermore, the current study was unable to include socioeconomic status (income and education) because of causal and collinearity problems with current work characteristics. A second limitation is the age range of women in the sample; a larger range would be preferable so that work context and values before childbearing for younger women as well as a picture of work and completed fertility once women are no longer of reproductive age would be informative. Finally, this study does not include partners’ work and fertility contextual factors. Prior research has indicated the importance of male partners’ childbearing intentions for fertility outcomes (Thomson, 1997) as well as the crossover effects of spousal work–family conflict on fertility intentions (Shreffler, Pirretti, & Drago, 2010). The NSFB, however, surveyed only a subset of partners, and the small number of employed women with employed partners in the data set would not allow for an extensive exploration of partner influences on women’s childbearing plans and behaviors.

Despite the limitations, this study makes several contributions to research on contemporary employed women’s fertility in the United States. First, this study is the first to consider how professional work characteristics are associated with childbearing in a contemporary, representative sample of employed women. Findings indicate that work context appears to be an important factor in fertility postponement. The actual effects are likely even more striking than this study suggests. Due to the aggregated nature of the data on occupational characteristics, the findings presented here are likely conservative estimates of the relationship between women’s work characteristics and fertility. Second, contextual influences beyond work are considered, including sociodemographic factors and the role of individual culture and values. Factors such as the importance of career success and the importance of motherhood are often discussed in the employment/fertility literature but have rarely been examined using representative data. This study indicates that while women in more professional occupations place a higher value on career success, they do not view motherhood as less important or want to have fewer children. This suggests that women in more professional careers continue to find it difficult to “have it all.” These results lend support to efforts to redesign policies and practices to facilitate combining motherhood and professional careers. As the number and proportion of women in professional occupations continue to increase, these findings have potential implications for future childbearing rates in U.S. society.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the assistance from the Population Research Institute at The Pennsylvania State University in data merging and for David R. Johnson’s thoughtful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

Author’s Note

An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2009 annual meeting of the National Council on Family Relations.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The data for this article were supported in part by NICHD grant #1R01HD044144 01A1.

Notes

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Contextual Understanding of Lower Fertility Among U.S. Women in Professional Occupations

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Employment and Fertility Relationships

Considering Work Characteristics in the Employment/Fertility Relationship

Relevant Sociodemographic and Attitudinal Mediating Characteristics for Fertility Plans and Behaviors

Statement of the Problem

Data and Method

Sample

Measures

Fertility Plans and Behaviors

Employment Variables

Sociodemographic Variables 1

Culture/Values

Analytic Strategy

Results

Descriptive Statistics

Multivariate Analyses

Discussion and Conclusion

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Author’s Note

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

Notes

References

Sociodemographic Variables¹