MARRIAGE, PARENTHOOD, AND THE MINISTRY - DIFFERENTIAL-EFFECTS OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY ON MALE AND FEMALE CLERGY CAREERS

While marriage has been a valued resource for occupational success among Protestant clergymen, particularly where the ''minister's wife'' serves as an unpaid co-worker, the occupational effects of marriage and family have been assumed to be negative when the minister is female due to disproportionate domestic and childcare responsibilities faced by women. This study, a quantitative analysis of occupational histories of 843 male and 299 female Episcopal priests, suggests that neither marital status nor children makes any difference for women in upward mobility or attainment, although both have positive effects for men, with one exception: Upward mobility into the third job was inversely related to the number of children that women priests had. The results suggest that men have access to two powerful resources for career attainment that women do not: male gender and a wife. They also suggest that marital status acid children are not responsible for women's lower occupational attainment.