JENNIFER GLASS University of Iowa LEDA E. NATH University of Wisconsin—Whitewater* Religious Conservatism and Women’s Market Behavior Following Marriage and Childbirth This study explores the effect of religious con- servatism on the labor force behavior of women who marry or add a new child to their house- hold, using the 1988 – 1993 National Survey of Families and Households (N ¼ 3,494). We model changes in labor supply, occupation, and wages as a function of either conservative denominational membership or conservative religious belief, holding other economic and demographic characteristics constant. Among Whites, conservative denomination did decrease labor supply following marriage or a marital birth, whereas conservative religious beliefs had larger influences on occupation choice and wages. Among Blacks, conservative denomina- tion increased labor supply following marital births, but neither denomination nor belief affected occupation or wage growth. Results show the significance of religious ideology for understanding continuing gender inequality. Because the obligations of mothers to support their children financially have been increasing over time, women’s decisions to limit their market involvement after forming families carry significant financial penalties for their families and for themselves later in life, and are an impor- tant source of continuing gender inequality in earnings and workplace authority (Folbre, 2001; U.S. General Accounting Office, 2003; Williams, 2000). Yet, many women continue to do so, some because of structural barriers to employment (lack of education, access to quality child care, transportation, etc.) but others for ideological reasons whose persistence across co- horts is not yet clearly understood (Hays, 1996). Abundant research has established that women’s ideological beliefs about the effects of mother’s employment and nonmaternal child care on chil- dren and families are important determinants of labor force withdrawals following childbirth and planned domesticity in adulthood (Desai & Waite, 1991; Glass & Riley, 1997; Hakim, 2002; Rosenfeld & Trappe, 1996), even after controlling for partner’s income and class. Although social influences on individuals’ gender ideology may come from a variety of sources, religious institutions serve as impor- tant transmitters of information about how to organize and conduct family life and child- rearing. Conservative religious groups, in par- ticular, promote a traditional family structure in which married women concentrate on home- making rather than career attainment, especially when their children are young (Bartkowski, 1999; Sherkat, 2000; Smith, 2000). These groups have been growing in size and influence (see Brooks, 2002; Hout, Greeley, & Wilde, 2001) despite or perhaps because of the concom- itant growth in mothers’ obligations to support their children financially. Woodberry and Smith (1998) estimate that conservative Protestants Department of Sociology, W140 Seashore Hall, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242 (jennifer-glass@uiowa.edu). *Department of Sociology, Salisbury 204, University of Wisconsin—Whitewater, Whitewater, WI 53190. Key Words: childbirth, labor supply, marriage, religion. Journal of Marriage and Family 68 (August 2006): 611–629 611