SECOND CHILD'S IMPACT ON DUAL-EARNER FAMILIES.

• Position: Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

Having a second child may have an even greater impact than the first baby on the carefully balanced lives of dual-career, middle-class couples, according to a University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, study. "Women's full-time participation in the labor market drops off dramatically with the second child," indicates Rebecca L. Upton, an anthropologist at the school's Center for the Ethnography of Everyday Life.

"While most paid professional women return to the workforce full time after the birth of their first child, over 50% change to part-time work or take a leave of absence after the birth of the second. A second child also profoundly affects a couple's relationship to each other, with even the most equalitarian men and women assuming more traditional gender roles."

When Upton began her study, she did not expect the extent to which modern couples, most in their 30s and with good educations, subscribe to the traditional notion of the "ideal" family as a unit composed of two parents and two children. "The idea that, in order to complete a family, couples must have two children has persisted in the United States throughout generations. Both the men and the women I've interviewed frequently cite the belief that children should have a sibling, or that having two children, a boy and a girl, will provide some balance: There will be one for me and one for you...