Breastfeeding and maternal employment in the United States: 1968-1986.

This dissertation examines the relationship between infant feeding and maternal employment in the United States from 1968 to 1986. Although there were dramatic increases in these behaviors over this period, there is limited understanding of how women faced the potential incompatibilities of breastfeeding and postpartum employment. I explore these issues by examining women's behaviors using the four waves of the National Surveys of Family Growth, a nationally representative micro-level data set: I first document sharp increases in the incidence of breastfeeding and the incidence of postpartum employment (women at work within one year of giving birth) from 1968 to 1986. I use demographic decomposition techniques to establish the extent to which women's decisions to jointly engage in both breastfeeding and employment contribute to these aggregate trends. Using logistic regression, I examine the association between whether or not a woman initiates breastfeeding and her postpartum employment behavior. I examine the association between the duration of these behaviors by estimating discrete time hazard models of the likelihood of stopping breastfeeding in relation to the timing of the entrance to employment. I find evidence of conflicts between breastfeeding and postpartum employment, as well as evidence that between 1968-1986 women increasingly found means to accommodate these conflicts. I conclude that sequencing of behaviors is an important method for women to balance the multiple demands of breastfeeding and employment. While between 1968-1986 there were significant increases in the likelihood that a woman engaged jointly in these two behaviors during the postpartum period, most women sequenced these behaviors, stopping breastfeeding before they entered employment. In particular, women were most likely to stop breastfeeding in the month surrounding their entrance to employment. I conclude from the closeness of the timing of the transition out of breastfeeding and the transition into employment that these behaviors conflict. Furthermore, part-time employment appears to be an additional method of balancing the demands of breastfeeding and employment. Women employed part-time have a higher incidence and longer duration of breastfeeding than women employed full-time.PhDSociologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/103749/1/9409678.pdfDescription of 9409678.pdf : Restricted to UM users only