Preparing for Parenthood?

Abstract

This article explores how anticipations of parenthood differentially affect the career aspirations and choices of women and men who have not (yet) had children. Drawing from in-depth interviews conducted separately with 60 coupled young adults (30 heterosexual couples), I find that women in my sample were disproportionately likely to think and worry about future parenthood in their imagined work paths. Moreover, women were more likely than men to alter or downshift their present-day career goals in anticipation of the changes in preferences and responsibilities that accompany new parenthood. Because men were unlikely to engage in the mental work of anticipating parenthood, they were also free from its emotional and behavioral consequences. In this way, gendered anticipations of parenthood, which begin relatively early in an individual’s career path, are likely to play a key role in reproducing patterns of labor market inequality even before the real constraints of parenthood have set in.