THE ESTIMATED EFFECT OF MATERNAL EMPLOYMENT ON CHILDREN UNDER MANDATORY AND NON-MANDATORY EMPLOYMENT CIRCUMSTANCES

Abstract

Maternal employment's association with young school-age children's academic and behavioural outcomes was examined in a sample of families currently or recently receiving welfare. The sample comprised 1,197 African-American mothers and their preschool-age children who were randomly assigned either to the ‘human capital development’ (HCD) programme, the ‘labor force attachment’ (LFA) programme or to the control group in the Atlanta site of the Child Outcomes Study, a substudy of the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies (NEWWS). Once observed selection effects were controlled, maternal employment — regardless of whether obtained under mandatory or non-mandatory circumstances — was largely unrelated to contemporaneous measures of five to seven year olds’ academic school readiness and behaviour. There was one exception: maternal employment secured through Atlanta's HCD programme significantly predicted fewer and/or less frequent antisocial behaviours even after observed selection factors were controlled. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.

La corrélation de l'activité professionnelle de la mère avec les résultats scolaires et comportementaux de ses jeunes enfants à l’école a été étudiée sur un échantillon de familles recevant ou ayant récemment reçu des aides sociales (welfare). L’échantillon était composé de 1,197 mères noires américaines et de leurs enfants à l’école primaire, qui avaient été réparties au hazard soit dans le programme du ‘Human Capital Development’ (HCD), soit dans le programme ‘Labor Force Attachment’ (LFA), ou soit dans le groupe de contrôle du ‘Child Outcomes Study’ du site d'Atlanta, une sous-étude du ‘National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies’ (NEWWS). Une fois les effets de la sélection observée pris en compte, l'activité professionnelle des mères — qu'elle ait été obtenue dans des circonstances obligatoires ou non-obligatoires — a été déterminée être sans relation directe avec les mesures, sur la même période, des résultats et du comportement scolaire de leurs enfants de 5 à 7 ans. Une exception s'est dégagée: l'activité professionnelle des mères obtenue par le programme HCD d'Atlanta a été déterminée être un prédicteur, de façon significative, de comportements anti-sociaux moins fréquents ou en nombre réduit, même une fois les facteurs de la sélection observée pris en compte. Les conséquences sur les politiques et recherches futures sont exposées.

Keywords:

• maternal employment
• welfare
• child well-being

Keywords:

• activité professionnelle de la mère
• aides sociales
• bien-être des enfants

We would like to thank the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) for supporting this research (1 R01 HD38762). We also want to thank officials at the US Department of Health and Human Services for granting permission to use data from the Child Outcomes Study (COS) prior to their public release. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors alone and should not be construed to represent the official views of the US Department of Health and Human Services. The NEWWS and the COS were funded by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation and by the Administration for Children and Families — both in the US Department of Health and Human Services — and by the US Department of Education. The NEWWS was conducted by MARC, and the COS was conducted by Child Trends, under subcontract to MDRC. An earlier version of this paper was presented at ‘From Welfare to Work: What Happens to Infants and Toddlers When Single Mothers Exchange Welfare for Work?’, Washington, DC, 17–18 May 2001. This conference was organized by Natasha Cabrera, PhD (University of Maryland), Robert Hutchens, PhD (Cornell University, Department of Labor Economics) and Elizabeth Peters, PhD (Cornell University, Department of Policy Analysis and Management) and was sponsored by Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations Pierce Memorial Fund, Cornell University Institute for Labor Market Policies, The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Family and Child Well-being Network, and the Russell Sage Foundation.

Notes

1. At the time the NEWWS was designed, the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Title 45, Part 46, ‘Protection of Human Subjects’ did not require sample members’ informed consent to be randomly assigned or to have their administrative records accessed by evaluators, by virtue of their receiving public assistance. However, all study procedures, including random assignment, were approved by the US Office of Management and Budget, which assumed an IRB-type role in federally funded data collection activities. CFR has since been revised to require IRB review and approval of all study design and data collection procedures in federally funded data collection activities.

2. For greater detail on the JOBS programme and the design of the NEWWS, see Hamilton, Brock, Farrell, Friedlander, and Harknett (1997). For greater detail on the design of and findings from the COS, see Moore, Zaslow, Coiro, Miller, and Magenheim (1995), McGroder, Zaslow, Moore, and LeMenestrel (2000), and Hamilton et al. (2001).

3. Except for the Grand Rapids sample, in which about one-third of focal children had younger siblings at study entry.

4. See McGroder et al. (2000) for a detailed presentation of two-year impacts on children in the COS, and Hamilton et al. (2001) for a detailed presentation of five-year impacts on children in NEWWS and for young children in the COS.

5. In an effort to be parsimonious in the number of selection variables included in these analyses, we examined the degree to which each hypothesized selection variable did, in fact, predict both employment and the child outcomes. Not every hypothesized selection variable significantly predicted both employment and the child outcomes; however, each hypothesized selection factor did significantly predict either employment or at least one of the child outcomes. In the interest of interpreting identical models, we chose to keep all hypothesized selection factors in each model. A test for multicollinearity (using the ‘/collin’ option on the PROC GLM command in SAS) gave no indication that multicollinearity was a problem.

6. There were no significant differences in two-year employment rates across the three research groups. McGroder et al. (2000) reported that Atlanta's LFA programme increased employment in the month prior to the two-year survey by two percentage points over control group levels (though this impact was significant at only the p < 0.10 level). The slight discrepancy between this finding and the non-significant difference in the present study derives from the slightly different sample and different covariates used in the present analyses.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sharon M. McGroder

Sharon M. McGroder is a Senior Scientist with the Lewin Group, a health and human services policy research firm. Dr. McGroder has 18 years experience conducting and overseeing scholarly and policy research and program evaluations relating to family functioning and child well-being. She has held previous positions as a Senior Research Associate and Assistant Director of the Area on Welfare and Poverty at Child Trends, and as a Senior Policy Analyst for children, youth, and family policy for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) in the U.S. Department for and Health Human Services. Dr. McGroder holds an MS in Public Policy Analysis from the University of Rochester, and a Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies from the Pennsylvania State University

Martha J. Zaslow

Martha J. Zaslow is Vice President for Research and Director of the Content Areas on Early Childhood Development at Child Trends, a nonpartisan, nonorofit research organisation that focuses on research and statistics on children and families. Her research takes an ecological perspective, considering the contributions of different contexts to the development of children in low-income families, including the family, child care, and policy contexts. She holds a PhD in developmental psychology from Harvard University

Angela R. Papillo

Angela R. Papillo, formerly a Senior Research Analyst at Child Trends, has expertise in conducting research relating to adolescent pregnancy and parenting, and maternal employment in low-income families. She received her MA in Sociology from the University of Maryland

Surjeet K. Ahluwalia

Surjeet K. Ahluwalia is currently a Project Management Specialist for the District of Columbia's Child and Family Services Agency. She has expertise in conducting research on children receiving welfare as a Research Analyst at Child Trends. Ms. Ahluwalia holds a Masters in Public Policy degree from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government

Jennifer L. Brooks

Jennifer L. Brooks is a Social Science Research Analyst in the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Her research expertise includes the well-being of children and youth from high-risk families, including families receiving public assistance and families involved with the child welfare system. Her most recent work includes a national evaluation of child welfare systems reform efforts and their implications for child wellbeing. Dr. Brooks holds an MA in Public Policy from the University of Chicago, and an MS and PhD in Human Development and Family Studies from the Pennsylvania State University