The Long Road To The Fast Track: Career And Family by Claudia Goldin - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages Women of cohort 1 graduated college from 1900 to 1919, more than 30% of them never married by age fifty, and more than 50% of them never had a first birth. They had low rates of labor force participation. Even when they were around age forty-five, the participation rate for married was around 20%. Among those who had jobs, teaching was the main occupation. In general, women of cohort 1 had “either family or career” (rarely both). Cohort 2 graduated college mainly during the interwar years of the twentieth century (1920-1945); non-marriage was about 15 to 20%, and the fraction of those who did not give birth to children was from 30 to 35%. About 25% of the second cohort were in the labor force at the age of about thirty and, once again, teaching was the most usual. Thus, these women had “jobs than family”.

Cohort 3 graduated from 1946 to the mid-1960s; the fraction of unmarried was only 8%; Just 10% of married women from the third cohort did not have children. 25 to 30% worked when young and married, or almost the same level as for the second cohort, but the fraction in the labor force at age forty-five was 75%, considerably higher than for the previous cohort. At that time labor market offered college women little in the way of career promotion. One could say that cohort 3 had “family then job”. The women of cohort 4 graduated college from the late 1960s to the late 1970s; 12% remained single by their mid-forties. About 28% remained childless by age forty. Practically 80% of women from the fourth cohort participated in labor at age forty-five. The dominant occupation shifted from teaching to a variety of professions, including very prestigious ones. On the whole, they tried to gain a career first and then in the family. Cohort 5 graduated in the 1980s. Its college graduates are too young but it can be said now that they defer marriage, just as did those in the previous cohort. 26% never had a first birth. Already around 80% of young and married representatives of the fifth cohort worked; now their occupations were more and more different. Cohort 5 aimed at achieving both career and family. As a result, college women from cohort 4 gained in careers but lost in the family (only about 13 to 18% achieved “career and family” by age forty). ...Download file to see next pages Read More