Profesora: Alba

Despite decades of research, the effects of first-year maternal employment on children’s developmental outcomes is still uncertain. While maternal employment is not found to be harmful to all children, inconsistent findings regarding the moderators of maternal employment has continued to motivate further research in this area. This study extended previous literature by examining the effects of first-year maternal employment as well as race differences in maternal employment between African American and White mothers in a low-income, rural sample. Using propensity score weighting to adjust for selection bias, first-year employment alone did not predict children’s language skills or behavior problems. This is consistent with recent studies using modern samples and newer methods, including propensity score methods (Coley & Lombardi, 2013; Lombardi & Coley, 2014; Lombardi & Coley, 2017). This finding is also consistent with the conclusion of Lucas-Thompson and colleagues’ meta-analysis (2010) that early maternal employment alone does not harm children’s development.

In this study, the effect of first-year maternal employment was not found to depend on race for expressive language skills nor externalizing behavior problems. This is contrary to previous studies that found race differences favoring children of African American mothers (Baydar & Brooks-Gunn, 1991; Berger, et al., 2008, Brooks-Gunn et al., 2002; Han et al., 2001; Waldfogel, et al., 2002; Hill et al., 2005), some of which used propensity score methods to address differential selection into employment (Berger et al., 2008; Hill et al., 2005). This could be due to several factors. This study was conducted with a more modern sample, and many of

30

the studies finding race differences used the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY; Baydar & Brooks-Gunn, 1991; Han et al., 2001; Hill et al., 2005; Waldfogel, et al., 2002) and the NICHD Study of Early Child Care (Brooks-Gunn et al., 2008; Brooks-Gunn et al., 2010) which sampled children born in the 1980s and early 1990s, respectively. Since that time, maternal employment has become increasingly more common among mothers of all races (Women’s Bureau, 2016) which may be attributed to shifts in attitudes towards working mothers, a rise in single motherhood, and the accessibility of alternate child care arrangements. Data were also drawn from a rural sample where employment opportunities are generally scarce for everyone, compared to urban areas that provide more job opportunities and family services. It is also possible, as will be discussed in more detail below, that race differences in maternal employment are more nuanced such that differences exist in the effects of specific work characteristics rather than the effect of employment status alone.

Although first-year employment alone does not predict children’s developmental outcomes, there are specific work characteristics that predict different child outcomes. This study found that timing of first-year employment predicted language outcomes, suggesting a critical period in which going back to work between 6 and 15 months is associated with lower expressive language skills compared to going back to work between 2 and 6 months. This finding contrasts with consistent findings that early employment is negative for children’s

development (Berger, Hill & Waldfogel, 2005; Brooks-Gunn, et al., 2002, 2010). The samples of these studies were typically more advantaged, however, and the current sample is more aligned with studies using low-income samples that found that employment before 9 months is generally positive (Coley & Lombardi, 2013; Lombardi & Coley, 2014). The benefits of early

31

employment, like increased resources and stability, may outweigh the developmental costs of mother-infant separation.

This timing effect is similar to Lightbody and Williamson’s finding that going back to work between 12 and 17 months was negatively associated with children’s receptive language skills (Lightbody & Williamson, 2017). Since this “late employment” category extended from 6- 15 months, it is possible that the mothers going back to work between 12 and 15 months were driving this effect. Unlike the Lightbody and Williamson study, the present study examined expressive language skill, which may have a different sensitive period for development. More research using more precise measurement of employment timing and multiple language outcomes is needed to determine the exact sensitive period in which mothers’ return to work disrupts language development.

Unlike previous studies, the present study did not find a significant effect of mother’s work hours on children’s outcomes. Past studies have generally concluded that children whose mothers work part-time typically show more favorable outcomes than children whose mothers work full-time (Baydar & Brooks-Gunn, 1991; Brooks-Gunn, et al., 2010; Hill, et al., 2005; Lucas-Thompson, et al., 2010). Full time employment was common among all mothers in this sample, and has also become more commonplace since the data used in the previous studies were collected. Moving forward, studies should not only pay attention to the intensity of work hours, but also the time of day mothers are working these hours. Odum and colleagues (2013) found that non-standard work hours were common among rural, African American mothers, and non- standard work hours predicted lower language skills using the present sample.

A different pattern of results were found regarding children’s behavior problems such that WFS, not timing, significantly predicted children’s level of behavior problems. Children

32

whose mothers experienced higher WFS had more externalizing behavior problems. This is not surprising given the link between maternal stress and children’s externalizing behavior problems (Neece, Green, Baker, 2016). Since variables that capture work stress have been largely left out of studies of maternal employment, this study provides evidence that previous negative

associations between employment and children’s behavior problems may be attributable to WFS. This supports the sociological perspectives that maternal employment is only beneficial to a certain point, and WFS may represent the point at which working has negative consequences.

Finally, the moderating role of race in the effect of maternal work characteristics was explored. Interestingly, race moderated the effect of employment timing on children’s expressive language skills such that only White children were at a disadvantage when their mother went back to work between 6-15 months. It is difficult to reconcile these race differences in the context of previous literature that has found later employment to be better (Baydar & Brooks-Gunn, 1991). The propensity score analysis in this study only adjusted for differential selection into first-year employment, not differential selection into early or late first-year employment. It is possible that White mothers who went back to work early may be very different from the mothers who went back to work late on some baseline characteristic that was not included in the propensity score model. One possibility is that White mothers who go back to work later do so reluctantly.

Limitations & Future Directions.

This study focused on a specific sample, therefore generalizing these results beyond low- income families living in rural areas in the U.S. should be done with caution. Although

propensity score methods improve our ability to make causal inferences, these results should still be taken as correlational in nature for several reasons. The first time point at which most of the

33

baseline characteristics were collected was 2 months, when many of the mothers had already returned to work. Additionally, there were still some that had to excluded because they were endogenous to mother’s employment. Household income data was not collected until 2 months when some mothers had already gone back to work therefore it was excluded. Future studies of maternal employment should make an attempt to collect baseline covariates before the birth of the child to have a better adjustment of selection bias. Lastly, the present propensity score model adjusted for selection into first-year employment, and did not adjust for covariates that might drive selection into the specific work characteristics, like timing of employment and intensity of work hours. Thus, this propensity score model may not adjust for differences between mothers with different work characteristics.

While this study added to previous maternal employment literature with the inclusion of negative WFS, there are still several excluded work characteristics that may be important for mothers and children. Positive WFS may be one such characteristic that would capture the positive aspects of maternal employment that improve maternal and child outcomes, (Barnett & Hyde, 2001). Another important characteristic to consider is the mother’s attitude toward working. It is speculation that maternal employment is more normative in modern samples, but including variables that capture whether or not the mother chose to go back to work or whether it was necessary would formally test this hypothesis.

Conclusions.

These results shed light on the complicated nature of race differences in early maternal employment. In the context rurality, the effect of a mother being employed during her child’s infancy alone does not differ by race, but there is some evidence that timing of her return to work does. It is still unclear, however, why this race difference in employment timing exists. Early

34

maternal employment is a complicated familial process that can affect children’s development from many different angles. Since a majority of mothers in the US have no choice but to quickly return to work after the birth of her child, more research on this topic is warranted. Future studies should test a more complicated model of maternal employment, one that considers not only selection bias and moderation, but also mediation and moderated mediation to capture the decisions leading up to and after a mother returns to work, and the consequences of these decisions for her child.

35

REFERENCES

Allen, T.D., Herst, D.E.L., Bruck, C.S., & Sutton, M. (2000). Consequences associated with work-to-family conflict: A review and agenda for future research. Journal of

Occupational Health Psychology, 5, 278—308.

Austin, P. C. (2011). An introduction to propensity score methods for reducing the effects of confounding in observational studies. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 46(3), 399- 424.

Barnett, R.C., Gareis, K.C., & Brennan, R.T. (2008). Wives' shift work schedules and husbands' and wives' well-being in dual-earner couples with children: A within-couple analysis. Journal of Family Issues, 29, 396—422.

Barnett, R.C. & Hyde, J.S. (2001). Women, men, work, and family: An expansionist theory. American Psychologist, 56, 781-796.

Baum, C.L. (2003). Does early maternal employment harm child development? An analysis of the potential benefits of leave taking. Journal of Labor Economics, 21, 409-448.

Baydar, N., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (1991). Effects of maternal employment and child-care arrangements on preschoolers' cognitive and behavioral outcomes: Evidence from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Developmental Psychology, 27(6), 932-945

Bayley, N. (1993). Bayley scales of infant development: Manual. Psychological Corporation, San Antonio, TX.

Bellavia, G. & Frone, M. (2005). Work-family conflict. In J. Barling, E. K. Kelloway, & M. Frone (Eds.), Handbook of work stress (pp. 185-221). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.

Belsky, J. (1988). The “effects” of infant day care reconsidered. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 3, 235-272.

Belsky, J., & Eggebeen, D. (1991). Early and extensive maternal employment and young

children’s socioemotional development: Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Journal of Marriage and Family, 53, 1083-1110. doi:10.2307/353011

Berger, L., Hill, J., & Waldfogel, J. (2005). Maternity leave, early maternal employment and child health and development in the US. The Economic Journal, 115, F29–F47. doi:10.1111/j.0013-0133.2005.00971.x

Berger, L., Brooks-Gunn, J., Paxson, C., & Waldfogel, J. (2008). First-year maternal

employment and child outcomes: Differences across racial and ethnic groups. Children and Youth Services Review, 30(4), 365-387.

Blair-Loy, M. & Dehart, G. (2003). Competing devotions: Career and family among women executives. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

36

Bradley, R.H. & Caldwell, B.M. (1984). The relation of infants’ home environments to

achievement test performance in first grade: A follow-up study. Child Development, 55, 803-809.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1986). Ecology of the family as a context for human development: Research Perspectives. Developmental Psychology, 22, 723-742.

Brooks–Gunn, J., Han, W. J., & Waldfogel, J. (2002). Maternal employment and child cognitive outcomes in the first three years of life: The NICHD study of early child care. Child Development, 73, 1052-1072.

Brooks-Gunn, J., Han, W., & Waldfogel, J. (2010). First-year maternal employment and child development in the first seven years. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 75, 1-121. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5834.2010.00562.x.

Buehler, C., O’Brien, M., Swartout, K.M., and Zhou, N. (2014). Maternal employment and parenting through middle childhood: Contextualizing factors. Journal of Marriage and Family, 76, 1025-1046.

Burchinal, M. R., & Clarke-Stewart, K. A. (2007). Maternal employment and child cognitive outcomes: The importance of analytic approach. Developmental Psychology. DOI: 10.1037/0012-1649.43.5.1140

Coley, R.L. & Lombardi, C.M. (2013). Does maternal employment following childbirth support or inhibit long-term development? Child Development, 84, 178-197.

Derogatis, L.R. (1993). The Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI): Administration, scoring and procedures manual—III. National Computer Systems, Minneapolis, MN.

Dill, B.T. (1998). A better life for me and my children: Low-income single mothers’ struggle for self-sufficiency in the rural south. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 29, 419- 429.

Garrett-Peters, P. T., Mokrova, I., Vernon-Feagans, L., Willoughby, M., Pan, Y., & the Family Life Project Key Investigators. (2016). The role of household chaos in understanding relations between early poverty and children's academic achievement. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 37, 16-25.

Goodman, W.B., Crouter, A.C., & The Family Life Project Key Investigators. (2009).

Longitudinal associations between maternal work stress, negative work-family spillover, and depressive symptoms. Family Relations, 58, 245-258.

Goodman, S.H., Rouse, M.H., Connell, A.M., Broth, M.R., Hall, C.M., & Heyward, D. (2011). Maternal Depression and child psychopathology: A meta-analytic review. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 14, 1-27.

Grzywacz, J.G. & Marks, N.F. (2000). Reconceptualizing the work-family interface: An ecological perspective on the correlates of positive and negative spillover between work and family. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 54, 111-126.

37

Han, W-J, Waldfogel, J., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2001). The effects of early maternal employment on later cognitive and behavioral outcomes. Journal of Marriage and Family, 63, 336- 354.

Hill, J.L., Waldfogel, J., Brooks-Gunn, J., & Han, W. (2005). Maternal employment and child development: A fresh look using newer methods. Developmental Psychology, 41, 833- 850.

Hill, R. (1971). The Strengths of Black Families. New York, NY: Emerson Hall.

Hoffman, L. W. (1974). Effects of maternal employment on the child: A review of the research. Developmental Psychology, 10, 204-228.

Huston, A.C. & Aronson, S.R. (2005). Mothers' time with infant and time in employment as predictors of mother-child relationships and children's early development. Child Development, 76, 467-482.

Kainz, K., Greifer, N., Givens, A., Swietek, K., Lombardi, B. M., Zietz, S., & Kohn, J. L. (2017). Improving Causal Inference: Recommendations for Covariate Selection and Balance in Propensity Score Methods. Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, 8(2), 279-303.

Lightbody, T.K. & Williamson, D.L. (2017). The timing and intensity of

maternal employment in early childhood: Implications for Canadian children. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 26, 1409-1421.

Livingston, G. (2016). Among 41 nations, U.S is the outlier when it comes to paid parental leave. Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/26/u-s-lacks-mandated- paid-parental-leave/

Leite, W. (2017). Practical propensity score methods using R. Washington, DC: Sage. Lombardi, C.M. & Coley, R.L. (2014). Early maternal employment and children's school

readiness in contemporary families. Developmental Psychology, 50, 2071-2084.

Lombardi, C.M. & Coley, R.L. (2017). Early maternal employment and children's academic and behavioral skills in Australia and the United Kingdom. Child Development, 88, 263-281. Lucas-Thompson, R.G., Goldberg, W.A., & Prause, J. (2010). Maternal work in the lives of

children and its distal associations with achievement and behavior problems: A meta- analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 136, 915-942.

Marshall, N.L, Tracy, A.J., Orthner, D.K., & Rose, R. (2009). After the baby: Work-family conflict and working mothers' psychological health. Family Relations, 58, 380-391. McLoyd, V.C & Enchautegui-de-Jesus. (2005). Work and African American family life. In:

McLoyd, V.C., Hill, N.E., Dodge, K.A. (Eds.). African American Family Life: Ecological and Cultural Diversity. New York: The Guilford Press.

Neece, C. L., Green, S. A., & Baker, B. L. (2012). Parenting stress and child behavior problems: a transactional relationship across time. American journal on intellectual and

38

NICHD Early Child Care Research Network (1997). The effects of infant child care on infant- mother attachment security: Results of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care. Child Development, 68, 860 – 879

Odom, E.C., Vernon-Feagans, L., & Crouter, A.C. (2013). Nonstandard maternal work

schedules: Implications for African American children's early language outcomes. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 28, 379-387.

O’Hare WP. (2009) The forgotten fifth: Child poverty in rural America. Retrieved from http://www.carseyinstitute.unh.edu/publications/Report-OHare-ForgottenFifth.pdf. Rubin, D. B. (1987). Multiple imputation for nonresponse in surveys. New York: John Wiley &

Sons, Inc.

Ruhm, C.J. (2004). Parental employment and child cognitive development. The Journal of Human Resources, 39, 155 - 192

Silverstein, A.B. (1982). Two-and four-subtest short forms of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 50, 415-418.

Stone, L.L., Otten, R., Engels, R. C. M. E., Vermulst, A.A., & Janssens, J.M.A.M. (2010). Psychometric properties of the parent and teacher versions of the strengths and difficulties questionnaire for 4- to 12-year-old: A review. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 13, 254-274.

Shonkoff, J.P., Phillips, D.A., & National Research Council (U.S.). (2000). From neurons to neighborhoods: The science of early childhood development. Washington, D.C: National Academy Press.

Thompson, R.A. (2008). Early attachment and later development: Familiar questions, new answers. In J. Cassidy & P.R. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of attachment: Theory research, and clinical applications (2nd _{ed., pp.348-356). New York, NY: Guilford} Press.

United States Department of Labor. (2016). Black women in the labor force. Retrieved from https://www.dol.gov/wb/media/Black_Women_in_the_Labor_Force.pdf

Votruba-Drzal, E. (2003). Income changes and cognitive stimulation in young children's home learning environments. Journal of Marriage and Family, 65, 341-355.

Waldfogel, J., Han, W.-J., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2002). The effects of early maternal employment on child cognitive development. Demography, 39, 369-392.

Westrupp, E.M., Strazdins, L., Martin, A., Cooklin, A., Zubrick, S.R., & Nicholson, J.M. (2016). Maternal work-family conflict and psychological

distress: Reciprocal relationships over 8 years. Journal of Marriage and Family, 78, 107-126.

Willoughby, M., Burchinal, M., Garrett-Peters, P., Mills-Koonce, R., Vernon-Feagans, L., & Cox, M. (2013). Recruitment of the Family Life Project Sample. In Vernon-Feagans, L, Cox, M., & The FLP Key Investigators (Eds.) The family life project: An

39

epidemiological and developmental study of young children living in poor rural

communities. Mongraphs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 78, 24-35. Women’s Bureau (2016). Working Mothers Issue Brief. Retrieved from

https://www.dol.gov/wb/resources/WB_WorkingMothers_508_FinalJune13.pdf

Zimmerman, I. L., Steiner, V. G., & Pond, R. E. (2002). Preschool Language Scale, Fourth Edition. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.