The purpose of this research is to determine and analyze how family obligations influence the job mobility of women. In recent years, it has become recognized that job turnover is an important criterion for career success. A certain amount of early career turnover is regarded as beneficial because it can lead to finding a lucrative job, but too much job change may indicate that workers are failing to invest in job-specific skill that enhance their wage growth. Surprisingly, little is known about the extent to which women change jobs, let alone how their mobility is affected by fertility decisions. This research is important because it will shed light on one of the factors that may account for persistent male-female wage differentials. To accomplish the research objectives, data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experiences will be analyzed, primarily via the estimation of discrete-time proportional hazard models. The analysis will reveal how various measures of fertility and past career interruptions influence the job-to-job hazard rate as well as the nonemployment-to nonemployment hazard rate. In addition, the characteristics of women's career interruptions will be described, and the personal characteristics of women who interrupt their careers will be compared to the characteristics of those who work continuously. Special emphasis will be placed on race and cohort differences in turnover behavior.
