To Work or Not to Work? Child Development and Maternal Labor Supply

We estimate the effect of early child development on maternal labor force participation. Mothers of poorly developing children may remain at home to care for their children. Alternatively, mothers may enter the labor force to pay for additional educational and health resources. Which action dominates is the empirical question we answer in this paper. We control for the potential endogeneity of child development by using an instrumental variables approach, uniquely exploiting exogenous variation in child development associated with child handedness. We find that a one unit increase in poor child development decreases maternal labor force participation by approximately 10 percentage points. (JEL J13, J16, J22)

Parental Background and Earnings: German Evidence on Direct and Indirect Relationships

SummaryUsing data from the German Socioeconomic Panel (GSOEP), the study analyzes the direct and indirect effects of parental background on employees' earnings. To examine indirect effects we estimate the determinants of the employees' years of schooling. In a second step, we run wage regressions to examine direct effects. Our results suggest that the direct and indirect effects of parental background driving the intergenerational correlation of socioeconomic status are complex. It is not only important to differentiate between mother's and father's education. It is also important to take into account other parental characteristics such as maternal labor force participation and the parents' occupational status and fertility. Moreover, we find that interaction effects play an important role. The returns to schooling depend on the employees' parental background.

Maternal Labor Force Participation and Child Well-Being in Public Assistance Families

This study investigated the relationship between maternal labor force participation and the general health and school performance of school-age children in public assistance families. Data were obtained from face-to-face interviews with 97 mothers drawn froma random sample of public assistance recipients in one community. Using a measure of maternal labor force participation over the course of several years, logistic regression analysis revealed positive, but complex, relationships. Children whose mothers had recent, current, or long-term employment were in better health than children whose mothers had been unemployed for more than 2 years. Children’s school performancewas positively associated with either long-term unemployment or long-term employment, suggesting that the stability of maternal labor force participation, rather than work status per se, was an important factor. The study maintains a needed focus on child outcomes and provides an important conceptualization of maternal labor force participation for use in future welfare reform studies.