Maternal employment and the health of low-income young children.
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.
Gennetian
Lisa A
LA
Brookings Institution, Economic Studies, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue, Washington, DC, USA. gennetl@nber.org
Hill
Heather D
HD
London
Andrew S
AS
Lopoo
Leonard M
LM
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