PROBLEMÁTICA DE LOS NÚCLEOS DESAPARECIDOS: ARCHITE,

We begin by examining the impact of the presence of a child with special needs on the labor force participation of mothers, including whether or not they are employed outside the home, the number of hours typically worked per week, and employment stability and job retention.

Methods

Standard univariate and bivariate statistics were used to compare the employment outcomes of mothers of children with various special needs and mothers of ““typical”” children. Multivariate regression techniques35 _{were then used to examine the impact of a child with special needs on a}

mother’’s employment while controlling for other factors related to labor force participation, including the mother’’s education, race, age, and marital status as well as the number and age of her children.

To investigate whether maternal employment varies according to type of special need, we compare the employment of mothers with children with each type of special need to mothers of children with no special needs. To further isolate the effect of a child with special needs by type, we exclude from the sample mothers of children with multiple special needs and mothers with more than one child with special needs (Table 3 examines the impact of children with multiple special needs and multiple children with special needs). So, for example, in order to examine the impact of a child’’s disability on the mother’’s employment, we compare the employment of mothers of disabled children (who have no other special need, including a health condition, or, for children 6 to 17, behavior problems) to that of mothers whose children have no special needs. Similarly, the employment of mothers of children in poor health is compared to that of mothers of children who are in good health and have no other special needs (including a disability or, for children 6 to 17, behavior problem). For children 6 to 17, the same is done to isolate the effect of children with behavior problems on maternal employment. As stated earlier, questions in the NSAF regarding behavioral or emotional problems were asked only of mothers of children age 6 to 17. Therefore, in all of our analyses based on type of special need, we examine the two age groups (0 to 5 and 6 to 17) separately. Comparisons based on behavioral problems are made only for children age 6 to 17.

Finally, we also analyze the employment of mothers of children aged 0 to 5 and the employment of mothers of children aged 6-17 separately. This is done because mothers of younger children generally work less than mothers of older children and we want to isolate the effect of the special needs on maternal employment from the effect of the presence of a preschool aged child(ren).

Findings

Table 2 below displays statistics comparing employment rates and levels of mothers of children with various special needs to a sample of mothers of children without special needs. We examine overall employment rates as well as the percent working full-time (more than 35 hours per week). We also

35 _{Regression techniques are used to simultaneously examine multiple factors assumed to influence} outcomes like labor force participation, employment levels and job retention and to isolate the effects of specific factors such as the presence of a child with special needs from other factors that impact parental employment. For example, using regression models we can examine the impact of the presence of a child with special needs on employment rates or job duration controlling for the parent’’s age, education, and marital status as well as the number and age of other children. This means we can estimate separate impacts for each of these variables. Regression methods enable us to determine whether the independent variables of interest (e.g., presence and type of child disability or special need) have statistically significant and separate impacts on the dependent variables (in this case, employment, hours worked per week, weeks worked per year and job duration) and if so, in what direction (positive or negative) as well as the relative size of each independent variable’’s impact on the dependent variable.

examine employment stability among mothers with children with special needs and other mothers. x Overall, we find that mothers of children with special needs are less likely to be employed

outside the home, compared with mothers of children without special needs.

x However, while we find significantly lower levels of labor force participation among mothers of children with special needs, we find little difference in the likelihood of full-time work versus part-time work among mothers of children with special needs and mothers of ““typical”” children.

x More significantly, mothers of children with special needs are having a harder time holding onto jobs and maintaining continuous employment, compared with mothers of ““typical”” children.

Table 2: Maternal Employment and Child’’s Special Needs

Type of Child % Employed % Full-time Weeks Last Year

Job Duration (months) Families with children aged 0-5

No Special Needs 58.83 63.46 41.13 50.92

Disabled Child 53.85** 61.26 39.58* 45.89*

Health Condition 53.11** 71.54** 37.79*** 33.79***

Families with at least one child aged 6 to 17 and no child aged 0 to 5

No Special Needs 76.8 71.87 45.59 79.25

Disabled Child 69.60*** 71.86 44.75* 71.84***

Health Condition 64.64*** 73.70* 42.39** 58.65*** Behavior Problem 71.27*** 76.29** 44.57* 69.58***

36 _{The asterisks indicate that the differences between the employment outcome among mothers with special} needs children and mothers of ““typical”” children are statistically significant. *** (p < 0.001), ** (p < 0.01), and * (p < 0.1). The comparison is to families with no children with special needs. For example, families with a disabled child aged 0 to 5 are compared to families without any special needs children of any age; and families with a child aged 6 to 17 with a health condition are compared to families without any other children with special needs. This is done to isolate the effect of the different special needs at different ages. Tests of statistical significance provide evidence that employment differences found between parents with and without children with special needs are a reflection of the reality of these families’’ lives and not the result of biased sampling or random events. For example, using the 99 % level of significance (p<0.01) means that observed differences in employment between mothers with and without children with special needs occurred by chance in only 1 out 100 cases (or, in other words, we are 99 % sure that the differences observed are meaningful and not the result of chance.)

Labor Force Participation

x Overall, mothers of children with special needs are somewhat less likely to be employed than are mothers of children without special needs. This holds true for mothers of children with disabilities, health conditions and behavioral problems and for mothers of younger children and mothers of children ages 6 to 17. However, the differences are more pronounced among mothers of older children than among mothers of younger children.

o Mothers of children 0 to 5:

ƒ There is about a 5% difference in the employment rate among mothers of young children (aged 0 to 5) with a health or disability-related special need and mothers of children with no special needs.

ƒ Among mothers of children aged 0 to 5, 53.8% of mothers with disabled children and 53.1% of mothers of children with health conditions are employed compared with 58.3% of mothers of ““typical”” children.

o Mothers of children 6 to 17:

ƒ Among mothers of older children, we find larger and more strongly statistically significant differences in the employment rates between mothers of children with health or disability-related special needs and mothers of other children. This likely reflects the fact that more mothers of ““typical”” children return to the labor force when their children become school aged than do mothers of children with special needs, making the contrast between the two groups greater.

ƒ Compared to mothers of ““typical”” children, we find that mothers of older children with disabilities are 7.2% less likely to be working and mothers of older children in poor health are 12.2% less likely to be working.

ƒ These differences in labor force participation rates are found to be quite robust with statistical significance to at least the 99% significance level.

ƒ The data indicate that the presence of a child with behavior problems (measured only for children aged 6 to 17) also impacts a mother’’s labor force participation decisions. Mothers of children with behavior problems are 5.3% less likely to be employed, compared with mothers of typical children.