Does Mothers’ Employment conflict with Child Development?

1. Does Mothers’ Employment conflict with Child Development? Multi-level analysis of British mothers born in 1958 • Heather Joshi • co-author Georgia Verropoulou • January 7th 2007, AEA, Chicago • Centre for Longitudinal Studies, Institute of Education, University of London

2. Motivation • Does the employment of mothers of pre-school children have any adverse effects on children’s subsequent development? • Do cognitive and behavioural outcomes differ? • Does any effect wear off or emerge as children get older? • Is behavioural as well as cognitive development transmitted from one generation to another?

3. Literature • US: some adverse effect of employment ( esp full-time) when child very young on mid childhood outcomes ( eg Waldfogel, Brooks Gunn, Ruhm), • UK Gregg et al and HJ+GV, esp on literacy skills • Other UK Negative effect on qualifications in young adults ( Ermisch and Francesconi, HJ+GV on 1970 cohort) • Sleeper or cohort effect? • Most estimates mixed and modest

4. Data : NCDS 2nd generation • Women in the 1958 Birth cohort who had children in 1991 at age 33 • One third sampled: assessments on any children 4-17. • N = 1136 mothers, 1730 children ( 53% mothers have 2+ kids in sample) • 4 assessments on each child, cognitive and behavioural at 1991 x-section • Child age at assessment ranges 4-17 • Longitudinal data is on mothers, who are all the same age at assessment

5. Multilevel Multivariate Method • Outcomes (i) nested in children (j), nested in families (k): • Yijk = αi+ ΣEtjk βti + ΣXjkγ i + ΣZk δ i + Σ νij + Σ ijk • where, t indexes the pre-school age of the child when the mother was employed E • Xjk other child-specific controls and confounders • Zkmother/ family specific controls and confounders

6. Outcome variables • Two cognitive assessments of children on PIAT • Reading recognition (ability in oral reading) • Mathematics score • Negative of behaviour problems reported by mother on the BPI or Rutter A scales • Absence of Aggression/ anti social behaviour • Absence of Anxiety/ withdrawal • Internally standardised by including age and age squared in regressions -sample has a-typically young mothers

7. Employment variables • Mother's Employment History % kids • First year of child's life • Some employment 27 • Employment missing 17 • Child aged 1 to 4 • Some employment 57 • Employment missing 11 Poor dating and poor info on hours worked implies binary indicator rather than more detailed measure

8. Signs and significance of estimates of main effects model

9. Estimated Effects of Mother's employment on child scores

10. Comparison with ALSPAC cohort – born 1991-2

11. Estimates of Interactions: Reading

12. Reading/literacy coefficients on early employment by education of mother: NCDS and ALSPAC

13. Estimates of Interactions: 3 other outcomes

14. Conclusion Some negative association of mother’s employment in first year of life and reading: as in first generation NCDS and ALSPAC Estimates generally very small and poorly determined Only evidence for systematic deterioration by age of child is that initially favourable impact on behaviour wears off. Externalized behaviour more systematically related to the other socio-economic determinants of cognitive development than internalised ( anxiety) Intergenerational transmission of cognitive skills stronger than that of (one parent’s) ‘soft skills’ Sleeper or Cohort Effect? Data on daycare and father involvement lacking, but likely to have improved since the 1980s. Newer evidence should reveal.

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