Maternal employment and the health of low-income young children.
This study examines whether maternal employment affects the health status of low-income, elementary-school-aged children using instrumental variables estimation and experimental data from a welfare-to-work program implemented in the early 1990s. Maternal report of child health status is predicted as a function of exogenous variation in maternal employment associated with random assignment to the experimental group. IV estimates show a modest adverse effect of maternal employment on children's health. Making use of data from another welfare-to-work program we propose that any adverse effect on child health may be tempered by increased family income and access to public health insurance coverage, findings with direct relevance to a number of current policy discussions. In a secondary analysis using fixed effects techniques on longitudinal survey data collected in 1998 and 2001, we find a comparable adverse effect of maternal employment on child health that supports the external validity of our primary result.
Duke Scholars
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Related Subject Headings
- United States
- Time Factors
- Single Parent
- Poverty
- Mothers
- Male
- Humans
- Health Status
- Health Policy & Services
- Female
Citation
Published In
DOI
EISSN
ISSN
Publication Date
Volume
Issue
Start / End Page
Related Subject Headings
- United States
- Time Factors
- Single Parent
- Poverty
- Mothers
- Male
- Humans
- Health Status
- Health Policy & Services
- Female