Inequality in Work and Family Life Courses at the Intersection of Gender and Race.

Silke Aisenbrey , Yeshiva University
Anette E. Fasang, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

Which privileges and constraints do members of differently empowered groups face when combining work and family? Using the NLSY, we analyze work and family life courses at the intersection of gender and race. We focus on work-family trajectories of white and African American men and women from an intersectional quantitative life course perspective. Our results from a multichannel sequence analysis and the use of Mantel coefficients show a weak link between work and family life trajectories for white men, implying the privilege for white men to “have it all” and combine any type of family formation with any type of work career. In contrast, family formation processes tend to constrain work careers for other groups at the intersection of race and gender. We contribute to the literature by showing the privilege of possibilities for white men and identifying constraints for women and black men when combining family and work life.

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 Presented in Session 207. Intersectionality Approaches in Demography