JOB CHANGES FOLLOWING CHILDBIRTH - ARE WOMEN TRADING COMPENSATION FORFAMILY-RESPONSIVE WORK CONDITIONS

As women increasingly maintain labor force participation following chi ldbirth, job changing rather than labor force withdrawal is on the ris e. This article presents a theoretical perspective that rakes into acc ount the increasing financial responsibilities of mothers and modifies human capital propositions concerning job changing. We investigate in itial differences between women who change jobs following childbirth a nd those who stay with their prenatal employer; as well as the differe nces between changers' prenatal and postpartum jobs. Then we use regre ssion analysis of change scores to assess whether women make trade-off s between compensation and family accommodations. Results reveal that women are not making job changes that maximize family accommodations a t the expense of monetary compensation Rather they suggest that women are motivated by financial and family responsibilities to increase the ir share of both dimensions, although their improvement on both dimens ions is stunted because of their weak market position.