MARRIAGE, PARENTHOOD, AND THE MINISTRY - DIFFERENTIAL-EFFECTS OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY ON MALE AND FEMALE CLERGY CAREERS

While marriage has been a valued resource for occupational success amo ng Protestant clergymen, particularly where the ''minister's wife'' se rves as an unpaid co-worker, the occupational effects of marriage and family have been assumed to be negative when the minister is female du e to disproportionate domestic and childcare responsibilities faced by women. This study, a quantitative analysis of occupational histories of 843 male and 299 female Episcopal priests, suggests that neither ma rital status nor children makes any difference for women in upward mob ility or attainment, although both have positive effects for men, with one exception: Upward mobility into the third job was inversely relat ed to the number of children that women priests had. The results sugge st that men have access to two powerful resources for career attainmen t that women do not: male gender and a wife. They also suggest that ma rital status acid children are not responsible for women's lower occup ational attainment.