First Year Maternal Employment and Child Development

A new study finds that mothers who work during their child’s first year of life confer both advantages and disadvantages upon their children. Ultimately, the effect of maternal employment on a child’s intellectual, physical and emotional development is neutral.

The study aims to measure the full effect of maternal employment. This includes the prospective benefits of a higher family income and better child care in addition to the potential harm caused by a mother’s absence from the home. Working mothers were found to display greater responsiveness, or “maternal sensitivity,” toward their children and were more likely to find higher quality child care.

Eight years prior to the study, the same researchers who produced this study concluded that children whose mothers left home for full-time work in the first year of life were cognitively delayed compared with one-year-olds whose mothers stayed home. The team of researchers now find that although there is a mild cognitive lag among children whose mothers worked during the first year, the benefits a working mom confers counteract that minimal harm. The overall effect of maternal employment, the researchers conclude, is neutral.

The data are from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care. The study tracked 1,000 children from 10 geographic areas through first grade, examining their development and family environment. The study appears in the August 2010 issue of Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.
 

Read the report.