WOMENS RETURN TO SCHOOL FOLLOWING THE TRANSITION TO MOTHERHOOD

This study draws on a life course perspective and event history method s to analyze the factors affecting the rate of women's school reentry following marriage and motherhood. We use a panel data archive of wome n born between 1905 and 1933 who were married and had children at the time of their first interviews in 1956 and draw on life histories coll ected during a second interview in 1986. Key variables related to an i ncrease in the rate of school reentry include higher levels of prior e ducation, holding nontraditional gender-role orientations, and life co urse experiences such as divorce and part-time employment. Further, mo re recent cohorts of women are more likely to return to school than th ose born earlier in the century.