The Journal of Genetic Psychology

Research and Theory on Human Development

ISSN: 0022-1325 (Print) 1940-0896 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vgnt20

Work and Motherhood: Transition to Parenthood

and Women's Employment

Frederica H. Amstey & Susan Krauss Whitbourne

To cite this article: Frederica H. Amstey & Susan Krauss Whitbourne (1988) Work and
Motherhood: Transition to Parenthood and Women's Employment, The Journal of Genetic
Psychology, 149:1, 111-118, DOI: 10.1080/00221325.1988.10532144

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00221325.1988.10532144

Published online: 11 Sep 2012.

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 The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 149(1), 111-118

Work and Motherhood: Transition to

Parenthood and Women's Employment
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FREDERICA H. AMSTEY
Department of Psychology
Nazareth College of Rochester, New York
SUSAN KRAUSS WHITBOURNE
Department of Psychology
University of Massachusetts at Amherst

ABSTRACT. From a sample of 30 husband-wife couples, three groups were defined

by wives' postpartum employment status and compared in the attitudes they had
expressed toward work and motherhood when making the transition to parenthood
one year earlier, when all women in the sample had been employed full-time. Greater
work commitment during pregnancy was shown by women who retained their full-
time employment status. The mothers of these full-time working women themselves
had worked but later in their daughters' childhood than did mothers of women in the
part-time work and homemaker groups. Husbands were less likely than wives to
endorse their wives' working for financial reasons, possibly due to perceptions of
threat to their masculine role.

MANY STUDENTS of the family life cycle observe that the birth of a first
child changes couple's roles, responsibilities, family dynamics, and life style
(e.g., Aldous, 1978; Duvall, 1977) and may at least temporarily diminish the
couple's marital (Glenn & McLanahan, 1982; Miller, 1976) or personal
(Campbell, Converse, & Rodgers, 1976; Neugarten, 1970) satisfaction.
Working women contemplating first-time parenthood may be concerned
about the potential impact on their personal and marital happiness and, in
addition, the effect of having children on their careers (Weinberg & Richard-

This report is based on a paper presented at the August 1984 annual convention of
the American Psychological Association in Toronto, Canada.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Department
of Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003.

Ill
 112 The Journal of Genetic Psychology

son, 1981), an effect which may not be favorable (Sears & Barbee, 1977).
Concern about the infant's welfare is another component of the decision for
women who plan to continue working (Hock, 1978; Roland & Harris, 1979).
Finally, practical difficulties of finding affordable child care, and expected
complications of rearranging daily routines may add to psychological con­
cerns. All of these factors may combine to make the decision about child-
bearing and career an extremely complex one, and the ensuing conflict may
persist into the early months of motherhood (Hock, Christman, & Hock,
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1980).
How a woman solves the problem of whether or not to pursue a career
may depend partly on childhood experiences and identifications. It has been
suggested that women who choose careers have had strong role models in
their own working mothers (Elder & Maclnnis, 1983; Williams, 1977). Other
researchers point to the fact that, for many women, work outside of the home
is sought because of economic necessity (Ewer, Crimmins, & Oliver, 1979;
Huston-Stein & Higgins-Trenk, 1978).
The purpose of the present study was to differentiate between women
who returned to work after the birth of theirfirstchild and those who did not,
using attitudinal measures administered prior to this transition. The availabil­
ity of data from the expectant period made it possible to avoid the inferential
difficulties of retrospective information about factors influencing the decision
about returning to work, as in Hock et al. (1980). Whereas most studies have
measured the work commitment of women whose employment status varied
after they became mothers, we ascertained whether women who decided to
continue their employment after motherhood were more committed to their
employment prior to the event of the first birth. Differences in work commit­
ment would, therefore, not be contaminated by the effects of rationalization
about their decision regarding the return to work. Husbands were also in­
cluded in the study because of the importance of their attitudes to wives'
feelings about work (Andrisani, 1978; Holahan & Gilbert, 1979; House-
knecht & Macke, 1981; Spitze & Waite, 1981). In addition, by selecting only
expectant couples, it was possible to focus on the career decision uncon-
founded by issues related to the decision to become a parent.
We hypothesized that women who returned to full-time work after the
birth of their first child would, when they were pregnant, show greater work
commitment than women in other groups. Full-time employed women were
also expected to have higher scores on scales measuring work motivation, and
to have attitudes toward homemaking and work consistent with their subse­
quent return to work as mothers. We also expected that full-time workers
would have backgrounds more conducive to and encouraging of a career ori­
entation (e.g., their own mothers working while their daughters were young)
and husbands more supportive of mothers working outside the home than
would women who chose not to return to work after giving birth. Part-time
 Amstey & Whitbourne 113

workers were expected to fall generally in between the full-time and home-
maker groups on attitudinal and background measures.

Method
Subjects
A total of 30 married, white, middle-class couples were questioned while the
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wives were in their third trimester of their first pregnancy. The age of the
wives ranged from 24 to 32 years (M = 27 years, SD = 2.53). The couples
had been married for 4.33 years (SD = 2.14), and the wives had worked full-
time for at least three years prior to entry into the study. Their family socio-
economic status (Hollingshead, 1979) placed them in Social Class II
(M = 48.73, SD = 13.57), with both husband and wife holding white collar
occupations (medium-sized business, minor technical and professional lev­
els). Approximately one half of the subjects held a college degree, and one
quarter had graduate degrees. Almost all of the couples were earning family
incomes of at least $25,000. A minority of wives (35%) contributed one half
of the family income; most (66%) contributed one quarter. Compared to the
fathers (54% college or graduate school degrees, professional and technical
workers), the mothers of the women in the sample were slightly less educated
(24% college or graduate school), and those who worked were in lower status
occupations (service and clerical work).

Procedure
Participation was solicited through physicians in five private obstetrics prac­
tices distributed throughout a moderate-sized, upstate New York city. Women
who consented were asked to complete the questionnaires at home and to ask
their husbands to do the same, independently of each other. One year follow­
ing the birth of the child, the women were briefly interviewed by telephone
to determine their work status.

Measure
The Eyde Measure of Work Values and Background Factors (Eyde 1962,
1968), a four-part questionnaire designed to assess women's motivation to
work, was used. This instrument has the advantage of indexing work com­
mitment along dimensions identified as important influences on women's de­
sire to work (Safilios-Rothschild, 1971), but in a more systematic fashion
than is true of other such measures (e.g., Haller & Rosenmayr, 1971).
Part 1 of the Eyde (1962) measure contains a description of 17 conditions
under which women might work, varying the parameters of marital status,
 114 The Journal of Genetic Psychology

number and ages of children, and adequacy of husband's salary. Each ques­
tion is to be rated on a 5-point scale ranging from not wanting to work under
this condition (1) to very much wanting to work under this condition (5).
Only wives completed the remaining three parts of Eyde's (1962) ques­
tionnaire. Part 2 contained 84 statements (rated on 5-point scales) expressing
various motivations for working. Sixteen questions, all rated on 5-point
scales, comprised Part 3. These questions covered parents' and husband's
influences on the women's work motivations, and self-ratings on the impor­
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tance of various social roles. Finally, 22 questions in Part 4 concerned bio­

graphical data. An additional question asked if the respondents regarded their
work as a job or a career.

Results

The women were divided almost equally among the three classifications of
working full-time (n = 10), working part-time (n = 11), and remaining
home full-time (n = 9) one year after their babies were born.
Responses to Part 1 of the Eyde (1962) measure were analyzed in 17
separate 2 x 3 (Husband vs. Wife x Group) analyses of variance (with re­
peated measures on the first factor). The significant effects are shown in Ta­
ble 1.
Sex differences existed under several conditions, in all cases with women
appearing to be more favorable toward the wife's working than were men.
These differences occurred in five out of the seven conditions with the hus­
band having an inadequate salary. Group differences appeared in five out of
the seven conditions in which the husband's salary was adequate, and in only
three out of the seven cases where it was inadequate. In all of these hypothet­
ical conditions, women who eventually returned to work full-time were more
favorable toward working than were part-time workers and full-time home-
makers.
There were no group differences in Part 2 or Part 3 of the questionnaire.
There were several group differences on Part 4. The most interesting of these
was on the employment status of the wives' mothers, x2(l) = 7.14,/? < .01.
Of those in the two groups returning to work, almost all (95%) of their moth­
ers had worked; less than half (44%) of those women who did not return to
work had mothers who worked. Women in the group who did not return to
work had been younger (M = 5.50 years) when their mothers began to work
than were women in the part-time (M = 9.00 years) or full-time groups
(M = 14.62), F(2, 19) = 4.77,/? < .025.
Thefinalitem in Part 4 asked for reasons for "not working after marriage
and children." The one reason that differentiated the groups was the statement
"feel that wife's and mother's place is in the home," x2(2) = 9.82, p < .01.
Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 15:19 14 June 2016

TABLE 1
Sex and Group Differences in Hypothetical Conditions Under Which Women Might Work

Mean differences involved in significant effects

Husband's Significant Sex Group
income effects Wives Husbands Full-time Part-time Homemakers

Inadequate
1 child less than 2 years old Sex F( 1,22) = 16.04
Group F(2, 22) = 3.66 3.96 3.12 4.11 3.25 3.19
2 children less than 2 years old Sex F( 1,22) = 9.97 3.88 3.24
1 child 2 to 4 years old Sex F( 1,22) = 5.50
Group F(2, 22) = 5.48 3.92 3.40 4.17 3.63 3.13
2 children 2 to 4 years old Group F(2, 22) = 4.28 4.22 3.63 3.31
1 child 4 to six years old Sex F( 1,22) = 7.00 4.32 3.64
2 children 4 to 6 years old Sex F( 1,22) = 5.89 4.12 3.68
Adequate
1 child less than 2 years old Group F(2, 22) = 3.76 3.28 2.38 2.00
2 children less than 2 years old Group F(2, 22) = 5.46 2.78 1.88 1.50
1 child 2 to 4 years old Group F(2, 22) = 5.13 3.61 2.44 2.38
2 children 2 to 4 years old
1 child 4 to 6 years old Group F(2, 22) = 4.83 3.67 2.50 2.88
2 children 4 to 6 years old Group F(2, 22) = 6.40 3.72 2.44 2.69
 116 The Journal of Genetic Psychology

None of the full-time, somewhat more of the part-time (18%), and a majority
of homemakers (63%) cited this belief as a reason for not working.
There were no group differences in the percentage of women who
changed their minds about returning to work (22%). There was a difference
in the attitudes toward work between the women who returned to work full-
time and the other two groups, x2(2) = 14.09, p < .001. Most (70%) of the
full-time workers regarded their employment as a career. The part-time (82%)
and homemaker (100%) groups had considered their employment before
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motherhood to be a job.

Discussion

The decision of whether to return to work following the birth of a woman's

first child is a significant issue during the transition to parenthood. From the
present findings, it appears that the women's work commitment before mak­
ing the transition was a critical factor in the decision, as was her own mother's
work pattern. The sample as a whole appeared sensitive to stage of the family
life cycle in ways consistent with the actual work involvements of women
through the life course (Oppenheimer, 1974).
Sex differences in the direction of more favorable attitudes among wives
were demonstrated in almost all hypothetical conditions describing the hus­
band's income as inadequate. It would seem to be plausible that husbands and
wives would equally endorse the wife's making an economic contribution to
the home when there is a palpable need for it. The present results suggest
that, instead, husbands are less enthusiastic than their wives. Perhaps hus­
bands feel that their masculinity is threatened by not being able to provide for
their young families. The transition from couple to parent status may heighten
a man's needs to demonstrate his traditionally masculine role as provider
(Abrahams, Feldman, & Nash, 1978). From the point of view of social ex­
change theory, it may also be speculated that the husband is concerned that,
if his income were inadequate, his prestige in the home would be lowered,
and this loss would appear more evident to himself and others if his wife took
a job (Scanzoni, 1970).
As expected, the mothers of working women were more likely to have
been employed while their daughters were young. Contrary to the hypothesis
though, the women who did not return to work and who had working mothers
had as children been almost 10 years younger when their mothers returned to
work than were the women who did return to work full-time. It is possible
that, if a mother works while her daughter is very young, the child may re­
spond negatively to the absence of her mother at that point in her develop­
ment. As an adult, the daughter may decide not to recreate this sense of sepa­
ration for her own child.
 Amstey & Whitbourne 117

In conclusion, occupational involvement, considered an important me­

diator between women's employment status and sense of well-being (Warr &
Parry, 1982) also seems to be a central factor in the career versus motherhood
decision. By systematically taking into account variables relevant to a wom­
an's family situation, the Eyde (1962) measure could help to prepare women
for career decisions at the time of transition to parenthood.

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Received September 26, 1986.