First-Year Maternal Employment and Child Development in the First 7 Years

Jeanne Brooks-Gunn is the Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Child Development and Education at Teachers College and the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, and she directs the National Center for Children and Families (http: //policyforchildren.org). She is interested in factors that contribute to both positive and negative outcomes across childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, with a particular focus on key social and biological transitions over the life course. She designs and evaluates intervention programs for children and parents (Early Head Start, Infant Health and Development Program, Head Start Quality Program). Other large-scale longitudinal studies include the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study and the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (co-PI of both). She is the author of 4 books and over 500 publications. She has been elected into the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and she has received life-time achievement awards from the Society for Research in Child Development, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the American Psychological Society, the American Psychological Association, and the Society for Research on Adolescence.

Using data from the first 2 phases of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care, we examine the links between maternal employment in the first 12 months of life and cognitive, social, and emotional outcomes for children at age 3, at age 4.5, and in first grade. Drawing on theory and prior research from developmental psychology as well as economics and sociology, we address 3 main questions. First, what associations exist between 1st year maternal employment and cognitive, social, and emotional outcomes for children in the first seven years of life? Second, to what extent do any such associations vary by the child's gender and temperament or the mother's occupation? Third, to what extent do mother's earnings, the home environment (maternal depressive symptoms, sensitivity, and HOME scores), and the type and quality of child care mediate or offset any associations between 1st-year employment and child outcomes, and what is the net effect of 1st-year maternal employment once these factors are taken into account?

1. INTRODUCTION. 2. METHODS. 3. WHAT DISTINGUISHES WOMEN WHO WORK FULL-TIME, PART-TIME, OR NOTAT ALL IN THE 1ST YEAR? 4. FIRST-YEAR MATERNAL EMPLOYMENT AND CHILD COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT. 5. FIRST-YEAR MATERNAL EMPLOYMENT AND CHILD SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT. 6. ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN 1ST-YEAR MATERNAL EMPLOYMENT AND INCOME, HOME ENVIRONMENT, AND CHILD CARE. 7. STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELING ANALYSES OF THE LINKS BETWEEN 1ST-YEAR MATERNAL EMPLOYMENT AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT. 8. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS.