• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.185-207
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• 2006

Predominant explanations of the persistence of sex segregation ill occupations link job choices to profoundly gendered responses to childbearing and other family demands, arguing that women are more likely to seek jobs which are in some sense compatible with motherhood, either because they are family friendly (flexible, low intensity work) or because they are easy to exit and re-enter. In this paper, I examine the effect of occupational sex segregation on job exits into the labor market among women, with a special attention to the role of childbearing and child rearing. I use data from detailed employment histories gathered from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) in continuous time event history models. My results indicate that women in female dominated jobs are less likely to exit their jobs than women in other types of occupations. Further this relationship is not shaped by motherhood. While mothers or pregnant women are more likely to leave work, mothers in female-dominated occupations are slightly less likely to leave employment than mothers in other occupations. These results are not consistent with the ideas that women's choice of female-dominated occupations expresses a gendered identity and women strategically seek jobs which accommodate maternal roles. Taken together, my findings do not provide support to the idea that women choose female-dominated occupations because they are easier to integrate with motherhood (except for the pregnancy period).