Is There Competition between Breast-Feeding and Maternal Employment?

Theory suggests that the decision to return to employment after childbirth and the decision to breast-feed may be jointly determined. We estimate models of simultaneous equations for two different aspects of the relationship between maternal employment and breast-feeding using 1993-1994 data from th...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Demography 1999-05, Vol.36 (2), p.157-171
Main Authors: Roe, Brian, Whittington, Leslie A., Fein, Sara Beck, Teisl, Mario F.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Babies
Breast Feeding
Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding & lactation
Childbirth
Childbirth & labor
Children
Competition
Correlation analysis
Cost control
Decision Making
Demographics
Demography
Employment
Family Work Relationship
Female
Households
Humans
Hypotheses
Infant
Infants
Labor force
Labor supply
Likelihood Functions
Maternity & paternity leaves
Maternity leave
Models, Theoretical
Mothers
Mothers - statistics & numerical data
Multiple births
New
Occupations
Parental Leave - statistics & numerical data
Pregnancy
Public health
Questionnaires
Regression Analysis
Return to work programs
Studies
Time Factors
United States
USA
Wages
Women
Women's Educational Attainment, Employment, and Earnings
Women's employment
Women, Working - statistics & numerical data
Womens health
Working Mothers
Working women
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Theory suggests that the decision to return to employment after childbirth and the decision to breast-feed may be jointly determined. We estimate models of simultaneous equations for two different aspects of the relationship between maternal employment and breast-feeding using 1993-1994 data from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Infant Feeding Practices Study. We first explore the simultaneous duration of breast-feeding and work leave following childbirth. We find that the duration of leave from work significantly affects the duration of breast-feeding, but the effect of breast-feeding on work leave is insignificant. We also estimate models of the daily hours of work and breast-feedings at infant ages 3 months and 6 months postpartum. At both times, the intensity of work effort significantly affects the intensity of breast-feeding, but the reverse is generally not found. Competition clearly exists between work and breast-feeding for many women in our sample.
ISSN:0070-3370
1533-7790
DOI:10.2307/2648105