Wen-Jui Han

Maternal Employment and Child Cognitive Outcomes in the First Three Years of Life: The NICHD Study of Early Child Care

With increased numbers of women employed in their children’s first year of life and with increased attention being paid by parents and policy makers to the importance of early experiences for children, establishing the links that might exist between early maternal employment and child cognitive outcomes is more important than ever. Negative associations between maternal employment during the first year of life and children’s cognitive outcomes at age 3 (and later ages) have been reported using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth–Child Supplement. However, it was not known whether these findings would be replicated in another study, nor whether these results were due to features of child care (e.g., quality, type), home environment (e.g., provision of learning), and/or parenting (e.g., sensitivity). This study explored these issues using data on 900 European American children from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care, which provides information on child cognitive scores at 15, 24, and 36 months, as well as data about the home environment (as assessed by the Home Observation of the Measurement of the Environment Scale), parental sensitivity, and child-care quality and type over the first 3 years of life. Maternal employment by the ninth month was found to be linked to lower Bracken School Readiness scores at 36 months, with the effects more pronounced when mothers were working 30 hr or more per week and with effects more pronounced for certain subgroups (i.e., children whose mothers were not sensitive, boys, and children with married parents). Although quality of child care, home environment, and maternal sensitivity also mattered, the negative effects of working 30 hr or more per week in the first 9 months were still found, even when controlling for child-care quality, the quality of the home environment, and maternal sensitivity. Implications for policy are also discussed.

The effects of early maternal employment on child cognitive development

We investigated the effects of early maternal employment on children’s cognitive outcomes, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth on 1,872 children who can be followed from birth to age 7 or 8. We found some persistent adverse effects of first-year maternal employment and some positive effects of second- and third-year maternal employment on cognitive outcomes for non-Hispanic white children, but not for African American or Hispanic children. These effects are present even after we controlled for a range of individual and family characteristics that affect child development, including those that are likely to be correlated with maternal employment, such as breast-feeding and the use of nonmaternal child care. Controlling for family fixed effects reduces the effects of early maternal employment on some cognitive outcomes but not on others.

Parental Leave: The Impact of Recent Legislation on Parents' Leave Taking

We use data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation to examine the impact of leave entitlements on unpaid leave usage by men and women after the birth of a child from 1991 to 1999. The results indicate that legislation providing the right to unpaid leave has not affected men’s leave usage. The results for women are mixed: in some specifications, leave entitlements are associated with increased leave taking or longer leaves, but the results depend on how we define leave coverage. Our results point to the limited impact of unpaid leave policies and the potential importance of paid-leave policies.

The Academic Trajectories of Children of Immigrants and Their School Environments.

Data from approximately 14,000 children in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey--Kindergarten Cohort were analyzed to examine the associations between childrens immigrant status and their academic trajectories from kindergarten to 3rd grade, with particular attention to the effects of school environments. Growth curve modeling results indicated that most children of Latin American origin improved their reading and math scores faster than non-Hispanic White children, thus narrowing their initial score gap and sometimes even surpassing White children by 3rd grade. In contrast, although they maintained higher reading and math scores, children from East Asia and India showed decreasing scores over time, which tended to narrow their initial score advantage over non-Hispanic White children. School-level factors accounted partially for these differences. Particularly in terms of the academic trajectories, children of Latin American origin responded more to school-level factors than did children of Asian origin, who responded more to child and family background, with the exception of children from Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos, who responded more to school-level factors. Simulation results point to the importance of school resources for the academic trajectories of children of immigrants.

Child Care Costs and Women's Employment: A Comparison of Single and Married Mothers With Pre‐School‐Aged Children

Objectives. The effects of child care costs on the employment of single and married mothers with pre-school-aged children were analyzed. Methods. Both demographic and employment data from the March Current Population Survey were used, supplemented by child care data from various sources. Results. We find that child care costs have strong effects on employment for women with pre-school-aged children and that these effects are larger for single mothers than for married mothers. Conclusions. Our simulation results suggest that policies that reduce the costs of child care could raise the employment rate of married mothers by 3 to 14 percentage points and the employment rate of single mothers by 5 to 21 percentage points.

Bilingualism and Academic Achievement.

Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort, this study examines the role that bilingualism plays in childrens academic developmental trajectories during their early school years, with particular attention on the school environment (N = 16,380). Growth-curve results showed that despite starting with lower math scores in kindergarten, Mixed Bilingual children fully closed the math gap with their White English Monolingual peers by fifth grade. However, because non-English-Dominant Bilinguals and non-English Monolinguals started kindergarten with significantly lower reading and math scores compared to their English Monolingual peers, by fifth grade the former groups still had significantly lower scores. School-level factors explained about one third of the reductions in the differences in childrens academic performance.

Parental work schedules and adolescent risky behaviors.

Using a large contemporary data set (the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-Child Supplement), the authors examined the effects of parental work schedules on adolescent risky behaviors at age 13 or 14 and the mechanisms that might explain them. Structural equation modeling suggests mothers who worked more often at night spent significantly less time with children and had lower quality home environments, and these mediators were significantly linked to adolescent risky behaviors. Similar effects were not found for evening work schedules, while other types of maternal and paternal nonstandard work schedules were linked to higher parental knowledge of childrens whereabouts, which led to lower levels of adolescent risky behaviors. Subgroup analyses revealed that boys, those in families with low incomes, and those whose mothers never worked at professional jobs may particularly be affected by mothers working at nights, due to spending less time together, having a lower degree of maternal closeness, and experiencing lower quality home environments. In addition, the effects of maternal night shifts were particularly pronounced if children were in the preschool or middle-childhood years when their mothers worked those schedules. Implications and avenues for future research are discussed.

Shift work and child behavioral outcomes

Using a large, contemporary US dataset, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth — Child Supplement, this article explores the relationship between maternal shift work and the behavioral outcomes for children aged four to 10. Special attention was given to subgroups of children (e.g. based on family type, family income, and mothers occupation and working hours) and the patterns of parental work schedules and work hours. Regression results suggest that maternal shift work may contribute to more behavioral problems. Of all children whose mothers worked non-day shifts, the strongest associations were found for children who lived in single-mother or low-income families, whose mothers worked in cashier or service occupations, and whose mothers worked non-day shifts full-time. Implications for future research are discussed.

The Timing of Mothers’ Employment After Childbirth.

According to data from a new nationally representative study of women who gave birth in 2001, the speed of a womans return to work after the birth of a child was influenced by many factors, including family structure, education, age, birth history, and race/ethnicity, but the strongest factor was whether or not the woman had been working prior to the birth.

Head start participation and school readiness: evidence from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort.

Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (n ≈ 6,950), a nationally representative sample of children born in 2001, we examined school readiness (academic skills and socioemotional well-being) at kindergarten entry for children who attended Head Start compared with those who experienced other types of child care (prekindergarten, other center-based care, other nonparental care, or parental care). Using propensity score matching methods and ordinary least squares regressions with rich controls, we found that Head Start participants had higher early reading and math scores than children in other nonparental care or parental care but also higher levels of conduct problems than those in parental care. Head Start participants had lower early reading scores compared with children in prekindergarten and had no differences in any outcomes compared with children in other center-based care. Head Start benefits were more pronounced for children who had low initial cognitive ability or parents with low levels of education or who attended Head Start for more than 20 hr per week.