Changes in the Employment Continuity of Succeeding Cohorts of Young Women

This article examines employment continuity for three succeeding cohorts of women in their 20s who would be typically experiencing early life-cycle transitions to marriage and parenthood. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women, women's work attachment is analyzed over 5-year periods during the 1970s, a decade of rapid social change. Two competing explanations are presented to account for the expected increase in women's employment continuity: (a) A growing number of women have characteristics traditionally conducive to employment, and (b) the employment behavior of those who have typically worked intermittently has increasingly resembled that of women who have typically worked more continuously. Findings show that the impact of behavioral change was far more significant than changes in women's characteristics. The implications of these results for models of female labor force participation are discussed.