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Maternal employment and child development: a fresh look using newer methods
Jennifer L Hill1, Jane Waldfogel, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn
1School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, NY 10027, USA. jh1030@columbia.edu
Developmental Psychology
|December 15, 2005
Summary
Maternal employment, especially full-time work in the first year, shows small negative effects on child cognitive development. Postponing work after the first year mitigates these impacts.
Area of Science:
- Child Development
- Sociology of the Family
- Labor Economics
Background:
- Increasing maternal employment rates over 25 years necessitate understanding impacts on child development.
- Policy research faces challenges from selection bias and missing data in estimating these effects.
Purpose of the Study:
- To estimate the effects of maternal employment patterns on children's developmental outcomes.
- To address data limitations using advanced statistical methods.
Main Methods:
- Propensity score matching to control for selection bias.
- Multiple imputation to handle missing data.
- Comparison of four maternal employment patterns: no work, work after year 1, part-time in year 1, full-time in year 1.
Main Results:
- Full-time maternal employment in the first year postbirth showed small, significant negative effects on children's cognitive outcomes compared to delaying employment.
- Multiple imputation produced different estimates than complete case analysis for several measures.
- Propensity score methods and regression modeling yielded similar results.
Conclusions:
- Early full-time maternal employment may have detrimental effects on early cognitive development.
- Statistical methods like propensity score matching and multiple imputation are crucial for accurate policy research in this area.