Understanding the Persistent Inequalities in Job Security Linked to Women’s Employment Trajectories around Motherhood: A Sequence Analysis Approach

Mengyao Wu, University of Salamanca
Alberto Del Rey Poveda, University of Salamanca
Guillermo Orfao, University of Salamanca
Jesús García Gómez, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Centre D'Estudis demogràfics (CED)

Despite a persistent 'motherhood penalty' on women's labor market outcomes, structural changes in the labor market have also created new divisions of labor, leading to growing inequalities in job stability among employed mothers. Meanwhile, despite an extensive literature on mothers' employment after childbirth, most studies focus on single events and fail to capture the diverse and dynamic changes in mothers' labor market attachment from a life course perspective. Using retrospective information on employment histories from the Spanish Fertility Survey 2018, this study examines how motherhood affects women's employment trajectories differently after their first birth in Spain by looking at changes in job quality, distinguishing between different types of employment contracts. We also examine whether and to what extent the persistent inequalities in job security can be explained by differences in women's socio-demographic and occupational characteristics prior to childbirth. Our results show that women from earlier cohorts, those without a migrant background, those with higher education and those with more egalitarian ideologies have higher levels of job security after childbirth. These findings highlight the underlying inequalities that lead to differential impact of motherhood on women’s employment conditions, which can inform future policy recommendations in the context of increasing social inequality.

Keywords: Inequality, Disadvantage and Discrimination, Human Capital, Education, and Work, Migrant Populations and Refugees, Gender Dynamics

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