A Longitudinal Study of Maternal Labour Force Participation and Child Academic Achievement

Abstract

The associations between maternal labour force participation and child academic achievement were examined in a birth cohort of New Zealand children who have been studied from birth to age 18. The results of this analysis suggested the presence of small associations between the extent of maternal labour force participation and scores on standardised tests of word recognition, reading comprehension, and mathematical reasoning. Similar associations were found between maternal labour force participation and success in school leaving examinations. These associations arose predominantly because children whose mothers worked had better performance than children whose mothers who had not worked in paid employment. However, patterns of maternal labour force participation were also related to a series of family and child factors including: maternal education, family socioeconomic status, race, birth order, family composition, early mother-child interaction, and child IQ. Adjustment for these factors reduced associations between maternal labour force participation and academic achievement to the point of practical and statistical nonsignificance. These results were found to be robust and similar conclusions were found for (1) a range of measures of maternal labour force participation, and (2) subgroups of the cohort defined by gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, or family type.

Maternal Employment and Parenting Through Middle Childhood: Contextualizing Factors

“…Emotionally and cognitively supportive parenting was greater when mothers were employed part time than when they were not employed. In addition to providing support for a central hypothesis of role expansionist theory, these findings are consistent with those from previous cross-sectional and prospective longitudinal studies (Brooks-Gunn et al, 2010; Horwood & Fergusson, 1999; Raver, 2003). Employment may offer resources and experiences that enhance supportive parenting, including enhanced social capital, reduced financial stress, greater life satisfaction, increased self-complexity, and improved problem-solving capacities (Barnett & Hyde; Perry-Jenkins & MacDermid Wadsworth, 2013).…”

“…Muller (1995) also found this pattern of differences when predicting mothers’ school involvement. Analyzing cross-sectional data from families with a school-age child living in New Zealand, Horwood and Fergusson (1999) found that mothers employed part time (< 20 hours/week) had higher responsiveness scores than mothers who were not employed. Using the SECCYD data, Brooks-Gunn et al (2010) found that European American mothers employed part time during infancy had higher observed sensitivity scores during first grade than did nonemployed mothers.…”

Deviant partner involvement and offending risk in early adulthood

“…This analysis suggested that there were small but statistically detectable tendencies ( p < .05) for this sample to under‐represent children from family backgrounds characterised by early motherhood, single parenthood, Maori or Pacific Island ethnicity, lower socioeconomic status, and lower maternal educational achievement. Whilst these results suggest some bias within the present sample towards the under‐representation of children from socially disadvantaged family backgrounds, it is unlikely that this bias will materially influence results since previous efforts to correct for non‐random sample loss have shown these effects to be negligible (Fergusson, Horwood, & Lloyd, 1991; Horwood & Fergusson, 1999).…”

School Adjustment in the Early Grades: Toward an Integrated Model of Neighborhood, Parental, and Child Processes

“…Some can be relevant to school-related processes and outcomes. For example, depending on race/ethnicity and other variables, maternal employment can have adverse, positive, or nonsignificant effects on elementary-age children's academic achievement (Horwood & Fergusson, 1999;Waldfogel, Han, & Brooks-Gunn, 2002). In an extensive review of the effects of maternal employment on school achievement, Beyer (1995) presents evidence that discrepant findings may be resolved when parenting styles are considered as mediating the relationship, with several work-related and demographic variables serving as moderators.…”