following lives from birth and through the adult years www.cls.ioe.ac.uk

Paper for Women and Employment Survey 25th Anniversary Conference

Shirley Dex, Heather Joshi and Kelly Ward

Institute of Education, University of London

Changes in Women’s Occupations and Occupational Mobility over 25 years

following lives from birth and through the adult years www.cls.ioe.ac.uk

Introduction Focus on women’s occupational mobility over their

lifetime Movements between occupational categories Part of IoE Gender Network project – using 1946,

1958, 1970 birth cohorts This paper is a specific attempt to replicate earlier

WES analyses, for better or worse- same categories, definitions of vertical occupational

mobility, and analyses- new data

following lives from birth and through the adult years www.cls.ioe.ac.uk

Overview of the presentation

What did we learn about women’s employment in 1980 from WES?

How are we going to examine change? Focus mainly on childbirth – last job before birth

to first job after Gender comparisons added, not possible with

WES Conclusions

following lives from birth and through the adult years www.cls.ioe.ac.uk

What did we learn about women’s employment in 1980 from WES? Most mothers returned to employment after childbirth

Gap between first birth and return to work beginning to shorten

68% of returns to employment after first child were to part-time jobs

Likelihood of downward occupational mobility over childbirth- lower at top end of occupations- Higher as duration out of employment increased- Higher if return to a part-time job

following lives from birth and through the adult years www.cls.ioe.ac.uk

1980’s

At the time WES was collected in 1980

1976 sex discrimination legislation

Statutory maternity leave introduced from 1973

Since then, improved maternity leave and pay

following lives from birth and through the adult years www.cls.ioe.ac.uk

NCDS and WES

The National Child Development Study

- census of babies born in a certain week of 1958 in

Great Britain

- 6 main interview waves up to 2000 retrospective

histories of employment and fertility

- women’s and men’s occupational histories.

- 5732 women, 5617 men up to wave 6, age 42. WES

- employment and occupation histories for 5320 women

following lives from birth and through the adult years www.cls.ioe.ac.uk

Method of examining change

Data Year of birth Up to age N

WES 1922 – 1936 44-58 1277

WES 1943-1953 26-36 891

NCDS 1958 42 4360

following lives from birth and through the adult years www.cls.ioe.ac.uk

Defining vertical occupational mobility

1. Professional

2. Teacher

3. Nurse, medical and social occupations

4. Intermediate non-manual

5. Clerical and secretarial

6. Skilled

7. Semi-skilled factory

8. All other semi-skilled, shop assistant, child care and unskilled

following lives from birth and through the adult years www.cls.ioe.ac.uk

Occupational Categories

Per cent downwardly mobile

Born 1922 - 1936

Born 1943 -1953

Born 1958

Nursing, medical and social 41% 26% 22%

Clerical 45% 46% 36%

Skilled 48% 41% 43%

Semi-skilled factory work 42% 44% 35%

Last job before birth and first job after

following lives from birth and through the adult years www.cls.ioe.ac.uk

Downward occupational mobility by occupation Predicted probabilities of downward occupational mobility across first

childbirth for WES and NCDS mothers by pre-birth occupation

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

teacher nurse int non-man

clerical skilled semi-skfactory

Predicted probability

WES

NCDS

Based on a standard individual working full time, one year out of labour market

following lives from birth and through the adult years www.cls.ioe.ac.uk

Downward occupational mobility by return hours Predicted probabilities of downward occupational mobility across first childbirth for WES and NCDS mothers by whether the first return was a full

or part-time job.

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

clerical nurse

predicted probabilities

WES FT

NCDS FT

WES PT

NCDS PT

Based on a standard individual, one year out of labour market

following lives from birth and through the adult years www.cls.ioe.ac.uk

Downward occupational mobility by timing of return

Predicted probabilities of downward occupational mobility across first childbirth for WES and NCDS teachers by years before first return to work.

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

0.35

0.4

WES NCDS

Predicted probabilities

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

Year 5

Based on standard individual working part time and a teacher

following lives from birth and through the adult years www.cls.ioe.ac.uk

Most recentjob comparedto first job is:

WES withchildren*

WESWithout

children**NCDS

With child

NCDSWithout

childNCDSmen

Higher 14 24 35 34 38

Same 49 60 32 45 42

Lower 37 16 33 21 20

Total 100 100 100 100 100

N 3019 1316 5004 1704 7000

Gender comparisons –first job to most recent

Occupation level of most recent job compared with first occupation in working life.

following lives from birth and through the adult years www.cls.ioe.ac.uk

Conclusions Improvements over time in women’s occupational mobility

Reduction in downward occupational mobility

Penalties worse for 1958 women than in the past (WES) if they return part time or after longer break

Men have plenty of downward occupational mobility

Interesting to see most recent cohort to see if part time work less of a problem now, after Part-time Directive