Since the mid-1970s, women living in the United States have experienced dramatic social, political and economic changes. In 1970, 43.3 percent of women of working age participated in the labor market; today over 75 percent do, as do 73 percent of women with children (US Department of Labor 1998). In addition to changes in the workforce, there have been changes in women's family lives. Marriage has become less permanent, with close to 50 percent of marriages ending in divorce, and less obligatory, as single females head 1/3 of all households with children. These changes have brought significant sociological attention to women's role in the paid labor market and to women's changed family structure. The work-family axis is pivotal in women's lives and more research is needed to fully explore the connection between work-family decisions and a woman's life chances. One main research question guides this research: What are the roles of work and family in women's social mobility trajectories? In order to understand the complex social forces that help to shape a woman's life chances, the co-PI will use on quantitative data from the U.S. Census to situate the women in the study's population within a national context and qualitative data to examine the constraints and opportunities that shape women's lives, how women perceive these factors and the ways they negotiate these forces at critical junctions in their lives. In-depth qualitative interviews with a population consisting of 80 women will provide the core of the analysis. Using a life-history analysis of the data, this project will make several important contributions to sociological research on women's social mobility. First, this project will examine women's entrance and withdrawal from the workforce, determining the effects of her workforce participation on her social mobility trajectory. Second, the interview data will resolve the theoretical puzzle surrounding the benefits of marriage, determining if marriage is beneficial for women, and if so, under what circumstances; this research will also determine if marital benefits are higher for traditional or non-traditional women. Third, this research will add to earlier research on the work-family conflict by investigating the multiple routes through which this conflict is negotiated and determining which pathways provide the greatest access to upward mobility. While some women have experienced enormous economic gains in the past thirty years, many have fallen behind and continue to be at a disadvantage in the workforce. By examining the processes through which women move into different class positions, it will be possible to differentiate routes that are more successful from those that do not promote social mobility. Thus, a major broader impact of the research is that findings could potentially contribute to the creation of policy suggestions tailored to improve women's life chances in 21st century post-industrial economies. This project will provide crucial knowledge for policy debates about women's well being in which earlier mobility routes via marriage to a breadwinning husband are no longer tenable for most women.
