Women’s family-related career breaks: a long-term British perspective

Abstract

The current work uses retrospective data from the British Household Panel Survey to analyze whether family-related quits have long-term effects on women’s occupational prestige. At a descriptive level and without controlling for endogeneity, the results show a negative association between intermittent attachment to the labor market for family-related reasons and women’s occupational prestige. In causal terms (controlling for endogeneity) the results provide evidence that women expecting to leave the labor force tend to choose lower-prestige occupations in anticipation of future career interruptions.