Fertility and Child Care Arrangements as Mechanisms of Status Articulation

Examines the way in which the employment preferences and the child care arrangements of mothers and young children are related to their fertility expectations. The findings indicate that the future fertility expectations of a large sample of mothers of young children who are not in the labor force were influenced by whether they wanted to be in the labor force given adequate child care and by whether they currently used regular child care arrangements. These findings are interpreted as responses to conflict between familial and nonfamilial roles in accordance with a theoretical framework developed by Coser and Rokoff. Data were derived from a subsample of the Current Fertility Survey. (authors modified)