Vida Maralani - Sociology, Cornell University
Early childhood investments and women’s employment across the life course
Date: 09/16/2021 (Thu)
Time: 3:30pm- 5:00pm
Location: This seminar will be held remotely via Zoom. (Please sign in to see the link.)
Organizer: Joe Hotz
Meeting Schedule: Login or email the organizer to schedule a meeting.
Meetings will be held via Zoom unless otherwise noted.
Meeting location: (Please sign in to see the link.)
11:00am - Anna Rybińska
11:30am - Sarah Nolan
1:00pm - Allison Stolte
1:30pm - Marwa AlFakhri
2:00pm - Duncan Thomas
3:30pm - Seminar Presentation (3:30pm to 5:00pm)
Additional Comments: In the U.S., early childhood investments such as breastfeeding and daily reading are strongly promoted by pediatricians and public health campaigns as critical investments in children’s health and cognitive development. Qualitative research on gender, work, and family shows that women unambiguously find these investments difficult to combine with paid work. This study uses a nationally representative sample and an event study design to examine how breastfeeding intensity and reading daily to young children shape mothers’ labor supply, wages, and job characteristics over the short and long term in the U.S. The analyses ask: Do women who make these investments more intensively work less? How long does the association between these investments and women’s work persist over the woman’s life course? Are there socioeconomic differences in how these activities intersect with paid work? The analyses measure the ways in which women change their labor supply and work characteristics in order to pursue these practices (anticipatory behavior), and differences in the long-term career trajectories of women who do and do not pursue these investments. We also examine how family socioeconomic status moderates the relationship between these childhood investments and women’s short- and long-term work outcomes.