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6 - The Labor Market Behavior of Married Women with Young Children in the United States

Have Differences by Religion Disappeared?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2014

By
Evelyn L. Lehrer  and
Yu Chen
Edited by
Lisa A. Keister  and
Darren E. Sherkat
Evelyn L. Lehrer
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
Yu Chen
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
Lisa A. Keister
Affiliation:
Duke University, North Carolina
Darren E. Sherkat
Affiliation:
Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
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Summary

Much of what is known about the role of religion in women's labor market behavior in the United States is based on studies that are now dated. Analyses of the 1987–8 National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) found relatively low levels of employment among non-Hispanic white conservative Protestant wives with children under age 6 (Lehrer 1995). Using data from the Youth Parent Socialization Panel Study (1965, 1973, 1982), Sherkat (2000) found an association between belief in Bible inerrancy and young women's decisions to be housewives early in the life course. And based on data from the 1987/1988–93 NSFH, Glass and Nath (2006) found that affiliation with a conservative denomination was associated with a decrease in white women's labor supply after marriage and after a marital birth. More recently, Putnam and Campbell (2010, chapter 8) noted that although a narrow gap persists, egalitarian gender norms have been largely accepted by both secular and religious women in the United States, including those affiliated with conservative Protestant religions – and that at present differences in women's labor force participation rates by religious affiliation and participation are small. These conclusions were based on descriptive statistics for a pooled sample of all female respondents in the 2008 General Social Survey.

In this chapter we take advantage of newly released data from the 2006–10 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) to study more closely the role of religion in women's time allocation decisions. Earlier research has shown significant differences across racial/ethnic groups in how various factors influence women's labor supply (England, Garcia-Beaulieu, and Ross 2004; Lehrer 1992), in various aspects of religious belief and practice (Ellison and Hummer 2010; Ellison and Sherkat 1995), and in the relationships between religion and economic/demographic variables (Fitzgerald and Glass 2008; Lehrer 2006) – suggesting the importance of separate analyses by race/ethnicity. Due to limitations of sample size, in this study we analyze data on non-Hispanic whites only. In addition, we focus on women with young children, the subgroup for which theory suggests that affiliation with conservative Protestant denominations may matter. As Sherkat (2000, p. 347) noted – commenting on the works of conservative Christian writers – they “are not loath to women in the workforce, but instead are articulating opposition to mothers of young children in the workforce.”

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Type
Chapter
Information
Religion and Inequality in America
Research and Theory on Religion's Role in Stratification
 , pp. 146 - 170
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

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