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Previous research details women’s career launch and childbearing timing strategies without fully theorizing how such work–family plans may be developed alongside men. Overlooking men’s role in this process obscures how women’s partners can shape their work–family experiences. This study examines how young dual-professional couples plan two careers while timing childbearing. Interviews with 40 partners from 21 mostly White different-sex couples reveal that partners plan simultaneous career launches; sequence men’s career launches before women’s; or independently pursue career plans. These career launch strategies are not tightly linked to whether couples agree to forgo parenthood; delay childbearing; or initiate childbearing soon. In some couples, women had thought in more detail about childbearing timing in relation to the partners’ careers than men had. These couple-level data show that men’s career plans more directly shape women’s career plans than childbearing plans do because men and women can view childbearing as separate from career planning.
Jaclyn S. Wong (Thu,) studied this question.