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Title: Employment and Child Care Decisions of Mothers and the Well-being of their Children
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Bernal, Raquel
Employment and Child Care Decisions of Mothers and the Well-being of their Children
EconPapers No. 361, Econometric Society 2004 North American Winter Meetings, August 2004.
Also: http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/ecmnawm04/361.htm
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Econometric Society
Keyword(s): Child Care; Child Development; Endogeneity; Labor Market Outcomes; Maternal Employment; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT)

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This paper develops and estimates a dynamic model of employment and child care decisions of women after birth in order to evaluate the effects of mothers' decisions on children's cognitive ability. I use data from the NLSY to estimate the model. The results suggest that the effects of maternal employment and child care usage on children's cognitive ability are not negligible. In fact, having a full-time working mother who uses child care during the first 5 years after the birth of the child is associated with a 10.4% reduction in ability test scores. Based on the estimates of the model, I assess the impact of policies related to parental leave, child care and other incentives to stay at home after birth on women's decisions and children's outcomes.

In this paper I focus on the labor supply and child care decisions of women immediately following birth, in order to evaluate the effects of mothers' decisions on the well-being of their children. In particular, I am interested in assessing the impact of both employment and child care decisions on children's cognitive ability. Previous studies have provided evidence that test scores measured early in a person's life have significant effects on future educational and labor market outcomes29. It seems at least interesting to try to understand whether there are any parental inputs that can enhance cognitive ability of individuals during their early stages of life. For this purpose I use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and, in particular, I look at the quarterly employment and child care histories of women after birth and until their child enters primary school at age 5. I assess the impact of these histories on Peabody Picture Vocabulary Tests scores and Peabody Individual Achievement Test scores (Math and Reading Sections). The key issue dealt with in the paper is the potential endogeneity problem that arises as a result of the existence of unobserved characteristics of both mothers and children. In fact, women are heterogeneous in both the constraints they face and their tastes. At the same time, children are heterogeneous in their cognitive endowments. As we would expect, mothers' decisions with respect to working when children are young, and/or placing children in child care are influenced by these heterogeneous characteristics of both mothers and children. Hence, children of working women or children of women that use child care will differ systematically from those whose mothers stay at home or do not use child care. This sample selection issue makes evaluation of the effects of women's decisions on child outcomes very difficult.

Bibliography Citation
Bernal, Raquel. "Employment and Child Care Decisions of Mothers and the Well-being of their Children." EconPapers No. 361, Econometric Society 2004 North American Winter Meetings, August 2004.