Princeton University sociologist Christine Percheski looks at implications of professional women’s rising employment, shrinking fertility and the fact that only a fraction of professional women – less than 8 percent – has been out of the labor force for a year or more during prime childbearing years.

This article was featured in the March 2011 issue of Working Mother Research Institute’s email newsletter, Working Mother Research Institute Essentials. To read additional stories from that issue, see the related content section below. To subscribe to Working Mother Research Institute Essentials, register on the newsletter page of this website.

Opting Out? Cohort Differences In Professional Women’s Employment Rates from 1960 to 2005 http://asr.sagepub.com/content/73/3/497.short