Most women who work in the year both before birth and after birth work for the same employer. Only 18% of women who go back to work within a year of having their first child switch employers when they return to the workforce. Women who work for larger, higher-paying employers are more likely to stay with those employers after childbirth.

Earnings grow at a very similar rate for women who return to pre-birth jobs and those who change employers within a year of giving birth.

Taking a short break from the labor force has only a temporary effect on earnings. Women who leave the labor force for at least one year after giving birth initially experience lower earnings when they return than those who take less time off. However, by the time the child is two years old, these women are on the same earnings path. 

Both employment and earnings after childbirth vary by the demographic characteristic of the mothers.

Compared to white women, non-Hispanic Black women face larger declines in labor force participation in the quarter of the first birth but are increasingly more likely to work as time passes.

Married mothers are less likely to work than women who had never been married at the time of the birth. Married mothers’ labor force participation was 4.1 percentage points lower than that of unmarried mothers in the quarter of the first birth and the gap between them increased to 9.4 percentage points six years after the birth.

Of those employed, older and married mothers earn less compared to their pre-birth earnings than their younger and unmarried counterparts. The earnings of more educated mothers fall less and recover faster than earnings of those with less education 

Danielle H. Sandler is a senior economist in the Center for Economic Studies.

Nichole Szembrot is an economist in the Center for Enterprise Dissemination.