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Maternal Employment and Adolescent Self-Care

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Abstract

Mounting evidence shows that self-care produces deleterious consequences for adolescents in the U.S. Since desscriptive evidence suggests that maternal employment is the primary explanation for adolescent self-care, maternal employment, it is frequently argued, is harming children. Heretofore, very little empirical research has actually investigated the impact of maternal employment on adolescent self-care, however, calling into question this assertion. This paper aims to fill this gap. The author uses the National Education Longitudinal Survey of 1988 supplemented by the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1979 to estimate the relationship between maternal employment and adolescent self-care. Unlike prior research, the author employs a variety of fixed effects models to account for omitted variables that may be related to maternal employment and adolescent self-care. Findings suggest that the adolescents of mothers who work full-time spend an additional 43 minutes per week in self-care compared to the adolescents of mothers who work part-time. Further, a standard deviation increase in the number of weeks a mother works during the year increases the probability that her child will be unsupervised by 27 percent. These effects are not constant across socio-economic groups: affluent families have strong effects, while the relationship is more tenuous among low-income families. This finding has important implications for pro-work social welfare policies in the United States.

Suggested Citation

  • Leonard M. Lopoo, 2004. "Maternal Employment and Adolescent Self-Care," Center for Policy Research Working Papers 59, Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University.
    • Handle: RePEc:max:cprwps:59
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    File URL: https://surface.syr.edu/cpr/104/
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Aizer, Anna, 2004. "Home alone: supervision after school and child behavior," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1835-1848, August.
    2. Thomas Deleire & Ariel Kalil, 2002. "Good things come in threes: Single-parent multigenerational family structure and adolescent adjustment," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 39(2), pages 393-413, May.
    3. Harriet Presser, 1989. "Can we make time for children? the economy, work schedules, and child care," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 26(4), pages 523-543, November.
    4. Suzanne Bianchi, 2000. "Maternal employment and time with children: Dramatic change or surprising continuity?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 37(4), pages 401-414, November.
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

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