The Effects of a Mother’s Return to Work Decision on Child Development in the UK

Abstract

The last 20 years has seen a huge increase in employment among mothers in the first year after giving birth in the UK. We examine whether early maternal employment has an adverse effect on child outcomes. We analyse rich data from a cohort of children born in the UK in the early 1990s and examine the impact of early maternal employment on three outcome variables measuring child cognitive development between four and seven years of age. We also explore whether the effect varies with the mother's educational attainment, lone parent status or the type of replacement non-maternal childcare used.The labour market participation of women with very young children in the UK has seen a huge increase in recent decades. The proportion of women in paid work 8 to 11 months after childbirth rose from 24% in 197924% in to 67% in 199624% in (Dench et al., 2002. The norm of behaviour for women with a child less than a year old has shifted from non-employment to employment in a period of less than 20 years. The question of how early maternal employment affects children's development is therefore a question of social concern as well as personal concern to many mothers. A number of US based studies have concluded that maternal employment in the first year of life is associated with poorer outcomes later in childhood, and in particular, poorer cognitive outcomes. These findings often suggest that adverse effects are focused on mothers returning early after their child's birth and returning full-time. It is unclear whether their findings would apply in the UK, with its very different maternity rights, childcare system and greater use of part-time working.In this paper we analyse data from a cohort of children born in the Avon area of the UK in the early 1990s. The extremely rich nature of our data allows us to shed new light on the relationship between maternal employment and child outcomes. First, and on the same lines as recent US work, we attempt to identify the impact of early maternal employment on three outcome variables measuring child cognitive development between four and seven years of age. To do this we must remove the influence of confounding factors that are correlated with maternal labour supply and that have an independent influence on child outcomes, which otherwise might lead to our estimates being biased. Second, we examine whether different groups are affected by maternal employment in different ways. Specifically, we * We would like to thank the Department for Education and Skills for financial support on this project. We are extremely grateful to all the mothers who took part and to the midwives for their cooperation and help in recruitment. The whole ALSPAC Study Team comprises interviewers, computer technicians, laboratory technicians, clerical workers, research scientists, volunteers and managers who continue to make the study possible. The ALSPAC could not have been undertaken without the financial support of the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, UK government departments, medical charities and...

The effect of breastfeeding on children's cognitive and noncognitive development

“…The Avon Longitudinal Survey of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) is a longitudinal study of around 12,000 children born in the Avon area in the early 1990s (Golding et al 2001;Gregg et al 2005). Mothers were recruited into the sample at the point at which they first reported their pregnancy to their doctors.…”

Taxes, transfers, family policies and paid work over the female life cycle

“…Following this period, it is crucial for the mother's return to the workforce and the child's continued healthy development to ensure that high-quality and affordable child care is available. Several studies have shown that parttime employment and employment after age one do not seem to hamper child development when the right child care is available (see, for example, Waldfogel 2004;Averett et al 2005;Gregg et al 2005;Berger et al 2005;and Brooks-Gunn et al 2010). …”

“…Given that the quality of the home environment relative to the quality of child care affects whether usage of child care affects a child's development positively or negatively, the redistributional impact of child care policies on child care use is important. Gregg et al (2005) show that there is some evidence that the negative impact of full-time child care in the first 18 months of a child's life is larger for children of higher educated women and smaller for children of single mothers. For part-time child care, no negative effects are found.…”

“…Besides the quality of child care, the intensity of child care use is also likely to play a role in the impact it has on child outcomes, as already indicated in the discussion of the research by Gregg et al (2005) in the previous paragraph. For example, in research based on the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), Kalb et al (2013) have found that an amount of between 15 and 29 hours per week has the largest beneficial impact on later learning outcomes (age four-five years).…”

“…This will almost certainly play a role in the choices that parents make, but it is difficult to quantify or establish the importance of this. It is also likely that the characteristics of child care, such as the quality of its facilities or the qualifications of its carers (see, for example, Gregg et al 2005), influence the impact of child care on child development and influence whether it is a positive or a negative impact. At the same time, quality is likely to influence the price of child care, and the quality of available child care is likely to affect usage by parents.…”