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Maternal Employment
The past several decades have seen an explosion of research, policy, and debate about one of the major social changes in the United States: the increased entry of mothers into the labor force. Central to these discussions are questions about the effects of maternal employment on children and families, as well as on mothers themselves. Several core themes have emerged from this body of work. These include an acknowledgment of the complex social context within which maternal employment affects children and families; the identification of processes by which mothers' work influences child and family outcomes, such as through changes in family interactions, mental health and well-being, and parenting styles; an appreciation that maternal employment may have differential effects on children of different ages; and policy applications.
Contextual Considerations
For mothers with children under age 18, the United States has gone from fewer than 30 percent in the labor force in 1960 to fewer than 30 percent not in the labor force today; the greatest recent increases have occurred among married mothers of infants and preschoolers (Hoffman & Youngblade, 1999). With more than half of all new mothers in the United States going to work within a year after giving birth, many children today have never known a time when their mothers were not working for pay. Moreover, attempts to understand maternal employment and its effects on children and families must take into account that this change is part of a whole complex of social changes. Both employed mothers and homemakers today live in a very different environment than their counterparts of 40 or even 20 years ago.
It is reasonable to assume that a mother's employment status affects children and families. What has become abundantly clear over several decades of research is that it is not the mother's job per se—or the fact of her employment—that produces the various effects that are linked to maternal employment. The impact of a mother's work depends on many factors, including the child's age, sex, temperament, and personality; whether the mother works full-or parttime; why she is working and how she feels about it; whether she has a supportive mate; the family socioeconomic status; and the kind of care the child receives when mother is at work (Parke & Buriel, 1998). The route by which mothers' employment affects children is likewise multifaceted, through influences on the family structure, functioning, interaction patterns, and child-rearing orientations, which, in turn have significance for child outcomes (Hoffman & Youngblade, 1999).
Effects on Children
Most of the research on the impact of mothers' employment points to a neutral or somewhat positive effect for most children, at least in U.S. culture at this time in history (Hoffman & Youngblade, 1999; Parke & Buriel, 1998). Children of mothers who enjoy their work and are committed to parenting show very favorable adjustment—a higher sense of self-esteem, more positive family and peer relations, less gender- stereo-typed beliefs, and better grades in school. Girls, especially, seem to profit from the image of female competence, and this is reflected in their greater achievement and career orientation (Hoffman & Youngblade, 1999). Boys, especially those whose mothers work fulltime, do slightly less well in school in some studies, although this is by no means a robust finding (Gottfried, Gottfried, Bathurst, & Killian, 1999). Studies of children in poverty, in both two-parent and single-mother families, have found higher cognitive scores and higher scores on socioemotional indices for children with employed mothers (e.g., Vandell & Ramanan, 1992).
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- Adolescent Development
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- Adolescence, Current Trends and Research About
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