Mostly the mother: Concentration of adverse employment effects on mothers of children with autism

Abstract

Creating comprehensive and effective social welfare and anti-poverty policy is an ever-elusive task. A key component of such policies and their related programs is the encouragement and protection of parents’ employment. However, such efforts become more complicated when families are faced with additional challenges such as difficulties, which may arise when parenting a child with a disability. Although both paid employment and parenting are widely understood as far from gender-neutral activities, how adverse employment effects become concentrated on mothers is less well understood. This article examines circumstances under which negative employment effects become concentrated on mothers of children with autism. The results of the analysis suggest focusing policy on addressing short term threats to the continued success of established careers and on workplace reentry could help counter factors which tend to result in having mothers’ careers disproportionately affected as a result of having a child with a disability.

Additional information

Dana Lee Baker is an assistant professor of Political Science and Director of the Program in Public Affairs at Washington State University. Her primary research interests are in disability and health policy development.

Laurie A. Drapela is an associate professor of Criminal Justice at Washington State University Vancouver. Her research interests include the etiology of adolescent substance abuse, juvenile court interventions for family violence, and institutions’ understandings of neuroatypical youth. She has published her work in Youth & Society, The Journal of Youth and Adolescence, and Deviant Behavior.