title: Maternal employment and the health of low-income young children.
abstract: This study examines whether maternal employment affects the health status of low-income, elementary-school-aged children using instrumental variables estimation and experimental data from a welfare-to-work program implemented in the early 1990s. Maternal report of child health status is predicted as a function of exogenous variation in maternal employment associated with random assignment to the experimental group. IV estimates show a modest adverse effect of maternal employment on children's health. Making use of data from another welfare-to-work program we propose that any adverse effect on child health may be tempered by increased family income and access to public health insurance coverage, findings with direct relevance to a number of current policy discussions. In a secondary analysis using fixed effects techniques on longitudinal survey data collected in 1998 and 2001, we find a comparable adverse effect of maternal employment on child health that supports the external validity of our primary result.
authors.affiliation: Brookings Institution, Economic Studies, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue, Washington, DC, USA. gennetl@nber.org
authors.forename: Lisa A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Gennetian
authors.forename: Heather D
authors.initials: HD
authors.lastname: Hill
authors.forename: Andrew S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: London
authors.forename: Leonard M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Lopoo
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004651:Employment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009035:Mothers / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011203:Poverty / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015406:Single Parent / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013997:Time Factors; D014481:United States