Maternal employment and overweight children

Patricia Anderson, Kristin Butcher and Phillip Levine

No WP-02-10, Working Paper Series from Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

Abstract: This paper seeks to determine whether a causal relationship exists between maternal employment and childhood overweight. We use matched mother/child data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and employ econometric techniques to control for observable and unobservable differences across individuals and families that may influence both children's weight and their mothers' work patterns. Our results indicate that a child is more likely to be overweight if his/her mother worked more hours per week over the child's life. Analyses by subgroups show that it is higher socioeconomic status mothers whose work intensity is particularly deleterious for their children's overweight status.

Keywords: Employment (Economic theory); Overweight children (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Journal Article: Maternal employment and overweight children (2003)
Working Paper: Maternal Employment and Overweight Children (2002)
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