Effects of early maternal employment on maternal health and well-being

Pinka Chatterji1, Sara Markowitz, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn

  • 1Department of Economics, University at Albany, BA 111A, 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY 12222, USA pchatterji@albany.edu.

Journal of Population Economics
|May 7, 2013
PubMed

This study uses data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study on Early Child Care to examine the effects of maternal employment on maternal mental and overall health, self-reported parenting stress, and parenting quality. These outcomes are measured when children are 6 months old. Among mothers of 6-month-old infants, maternal work hours are positively associated with depressive symptoms and parenting stress and negatively associated with self-rated overall health. However, maternal employment is not associated with quality of parenting at 6 months, based on trained assessors' observations of maternal sensitivity.

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