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Title: School Reentry and Degree Attainment after the Transition to Motherhood
Resulting in 1 citation.
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Augustine, Jennifer March |
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School Reentry and Degree Attainment after the Transition to Motherhood Presented: Chicago IL, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2015 Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: American Sociological Association Keyword(s): Education, Adult; Educational Attainment; Motherhood Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. The traditional patterning of life course events that has defined contemporary U.S. women's lives is changing as an increasing number of women now complete their formal schooling after the transition to motherhood. Despite widespread recognition of this demographic change by scholars and policy makers, we lack population-level estimates of women's post-childbearing school reentry or degree attainment, the timing of women's post-childbearing education vis-à-vis women's transition to motherhood, and the characteristics of women who return to school to pursue a degree after giving birth. For the first time, the present study provides such information. To do so it uses cohort data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (n=4,925). Among several key findings, 17% of mothers return to school to earn more education, typically a high school degree or equivalency, Associate's degree, or two years of college. Mothers earning high school degrees/GEDs are most likely to do so within five years of giving birth whereas mothers pursuing other academic paths are more likely to do so when children are older. Consistent predictors of additional maternal education were younger age at first birth, being poor around the time the schooling was completed, greater job instability, and higher cognitive test scores. |
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Bibliography Citation
Augustine, Jennifer March. "School Reentry and Degree Attainment after the Transition to Motherhood." Presented: Chicago IL, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2015. |