Event

Using data from nationally representative surveys fielded between 1965 and 2019, we assemble a historical time series for breastfeeding practices by race and education for children born between 1930 to 2019. Using these data, we investigate how and when breastfeeding became a practice differentiated by socioeconomic status and what this reveals about intersectional experiences of mothering practices in the U.S. We also investigate whether changes in patterns of family formation and fertility timing explain persistent differences in breastfeeding practices by race and education. Our results show that educational inequalities in breastfeeding are systematically patterned by race across the past century in ways that reflect important intersectional experiences of mothering in the United States.