Fatherhood, Union Status and Men's Work Lives

Nan M. Astone, Johns Hopkins University
Jacinda K. Dariotis, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Freya L. Sonenstein, Urban Institute

The proposed paper will focus on coordination across domains of life, specifically on the association of fatherhood and work in men’s lives, with attention to how this association differs by men’s union status. The first research aim is to update estimates of how three key events in men’s pathway to adulthood, the transition to “first” job, the transition to marriage and the transition to biological fatherhood are sequenced during men’s transition to adulthood. The second research aim of the proposed paper is to go beyond an examination of particular transitions and to provide a more detailed description of how men's work trajectories change when they make the transition to fatherhood and whether or not these changes vary by whether or not the man is married or in cohabiting union at the time of fatherhood.