Research and analysis

Employment pathways and occupational change after childbirth

A report into how far women ‘downgrade’ their careers after having children, by opting out of employment, or moving to part time or lower status work.

From:
Government Equalities Office
Published
22 October 2019

Documents

Main report

HTML

Summary report

HTML

Main report (PDF)

PDF, 1.53 MB, 76 pages

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Summary report (PDF)

PDF, 831 KB, 9 pages

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Details

This report was originally published on 22 October 2019. It has been republished to include more accessible versions.

This report assesses the extent to which women, by opting out of employment, moving to part-time work or to jobs with lower occupational status, ‘downgrade’ their careers following childbirth.

It examines how:

  • the careers of new mothers and fathers progress between the year before birth and either 3 or 5 years after.
  • pre-birth job characteristics (such as working hours, industry or sector) and personal and family characteristics (such as age at birth, education and number of children) influence the chance of moving out of the labour force, into part- or full-time work, and the probability of occupational down (or up) grading
  • patterns of ‘breadwinning,’ described by the employment status and relative earnings shares of men and women within couples, evolve over the same period
Published 22 October 2019

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