Table 3.
The effects of maternal employment patterns on child well-being: All behavior problems, WES 1997–2003
| Maternal Employment-Related Variables | Dependent Variables—Child Outcomest
|
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OLS
|
Probit Models (Marginal Effects)
|
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| Behavior Problem Indext (1) | Externalizing Scalet (2) | Internalizing Scalet (3) | Prob(Disruptive in School)t (4) | Prob(School Absenteeism)t (5) | |
| Workedt − 1,t (ref. = job stability) | −1.4170** (0.4775) | −0.3713* (0.1660) | −0.5476** (0.1728) | −0.0127 (0.0527) | −0.0432 (0.0584) |
| Workedt − 1,t × Job Instabilityt − 1,t | 1.2802** (0.2694) | 0.2801** (0.0944) | 0.4594** (0.1001) | 0.0603† (0.0341) | 0.0772* (0.0374) |
| Workedt − 1,t × Voluntary Job Mobilityt − 1,t | 0.2848 (0.2687) | 0.1052 (0.0994) | 0.1729† (0.1068) | 0.0086 (0.0372) | −0.0265 (0.0384) |
| Worked × Full-Time Workt − 1,t | 0.2941 (0.2592) | 0.1422† (0.0867) | 0.0153 (0.0983) | 0.0266 (0.0299) | −0.0046 (0.0332) |
| Worked × Fluctuating Work Hourst − 1,t | 0.8759** (0.3025) | 0.2509** (0.0955) | 0.2706* (0.1134) | −0.0164 (0.0328) | 0.0400 (0.0373) |
| Child-Year Observations | 1,572 | 2,256 | 2,249 | 2,115 | 1,068 |
| Number of Children | 520 | 575 | 575 | 564 | 456 |
Notes: Robust standard errors (clustered on child) are shown in parentheses. All models include controls for child’s age, gender, race, maternal age, maternal education, home literacy environment scale, family structure, and father involvement in child rearing. These effects are suppressed in the table to conserve space. In these analyses, the coefficient on “worked” represents the influence on children of mothers working and experiencing job stability between waves, relative to not working. The coefficients on job instability are in reference to those who worked and had job stability. So, for example, the coefficient on “worked × job instability” indicates the change in children’s behavior associated with a mother’s experience of job instability in the past 1–2 years (relative to the experience of job stability). To understand the influence on children of the movement from nonwork to an unstable job, one would sum the coefficients on “worked” and “worked × job instability.” Because nearly all mothers worked at some point during the past year, the working versus not working comparison is less useful than is characterizing the nature and pattern of employment and identifying differential effects in the type of maternal work involvement on child well-being.
p < .10;
p < .05;
p < .01