Maternal employment and the health of low-income young children

Lisa A. Gennetian, Heather D. Hill, Andrew S. London and Leonard M. Lopoo

Journal of Health Economics, 2010, vol. 29, issue 3, 353-363

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: Maternal; employment; Children's; health; Poverty; Welfare (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (27)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:29:y:2010:i:3:p:353-363

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