Community Assessment of Childcare Needs (2021)
Served as Project Lead for a Community Assessment of childcare need via a Washington State Department of Commerce Partnership Grant. Designed and fielded a survey for parents and care providers in Whitman County (N=315). Analyzed data and prepared formal report of findings.
The Intersection of Motherhood and Disability (2020)
Via funding from the Social Security Administration’s Small Grant Program, I employed in-depth interviews with 32 current and former SSI/SSDI beneficiaries to explore the impact of children on women’s workforce behaviors. Interviews explored the unique experiences of mothers with disabilities, with a specific emphasis on identifying the constraints they face in pursuing paid work, the supports they imagine might most effectively remedy those challenges, as well as the programs or resources they have utilized to facilitate transitions back to the labor force.
The research report, entitled “’My Hands are Really Tied in so Many Ways’: How Children Both Constrain and Motivate the Labor Force Participation of Mothers with Disabilities” will be presented at the Work and Family Researcher’s Network conference in June 2022, and the manuscript is currently submitted for publication.
The “Work like a Mother” Survey (2018-2019)
The often-cited fact that women earn $0.82 on the dollar compared to their male counterparts obscures a crucial caveat—the gap expands dramatically upon the arrival of a woman’s first child. As a master’s student at the University of Idaho, I launched an online survey in fall 2018 aimed at exploring the impact of motherhood on women’s paid work. I particularly wanted to dig beneath the already-available statistics and hear from mothers in their own words. It turned out mothers had a lot to say about the subtle and significant ways their work paths were influenced by the arrival of children–1,776 women responded! The “Work like a Mother” project aimed to more holistically explore this “motherhood penalty” by asking women about their post-child plans, their decision-making, their supports and constraints, and their successes and regrets.
SURVEY RESULTS
The Push and the Pull preliminary report
Thesis Intro + Results + Conclusion
Copyright © 2022 by Sarah Deming. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author.
Researching the Intersections of Motherhood, Work and Life 