Maternity breaks: Unemployment spells or relevant experience?

Bryan Tomlin

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2022, vol. 198, issue C, 673-681

Abstract: A correspondence study is used to determine how taking a maternity break from the labor force to raise a child affects a mother's ability to get an administrative job relative to mothers who did not take such a break. Relative to mothers who did not take a maternity break, those who did were about half as likely to receive a response to their application, as were those who spent the same time working as a nanny. Listing “stay-at-home mother” as relevant experience on one's resumé does nothing to shrink this gap. These results are consistent with the effect of unemployment on call-back rates as identified by previous research, suggesting that employers view maternity breaks as a form of unemployment rather than relevant experience.

Keywords: Maternity; Employment; Field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J7 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:198:y:2022:i:c:p:673-681

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2022.04.015

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