Parents’ Employment and Children’s Wellbeing

Parents’	
  Employment	
  and	
  Children’s	  	
  Wellbeing	
  Carolyn J. Heinrich

Summary
Since modern welfare reform began in the 1980s, we have seen low-income parents leave thewelfare rolls and join the workforce in large numbers. At the same time, the Earned Income
Tax Credit has offered a monetary incentive for low-income parents to work. Thus, unlike someof the other two-generation mechanisms discussed in this issue of Future of Children, policies
that encourage low-income parents to work are both widespread and well-entrenched in the
United States.
But parents’ (and especially mothers’) work, writes Carolyn Heinrich, is not unambiguously beneficial for their children. On the one hand, working parents can be positive role models for theirchildren, and, of course, the income they earn can improve their children’s lives in many ways.
On the other hand, work can impair the developing bond between parents and young children,
especially when the parents work long hours or evening and night shifts. The stress that parents
bring home from their jobs can detract from their parenting skills, undermine the atmospherein the home, and thereby introduce stress into children’s lives.
Unfortunately, it is low-income parents who are most likely to work in stressful, low-quality jobs
that feature low pay, little autonomy, inflexible hours, and few or no benefits. And low-income
children whose parents are working are more likely to be placed in inadequate child care or to
go unsupervised. Two-generation approaches, Heinrich writes, could maximize the benefits andminimize the detriments of parents’ work by expanding workplace flexibility, and especially bymandating enough paid leave so that mothers can breastfeed and form close bonds with theirinfants; by helping parents place their children in high-quality child care; and by helping lowincome parents train for, find, and keep a well-paying job with benefits.

www.futureofchildren.org
Carolyn	  J.	
  Heinrich	
  is	
  the	
  Sid	
  Richardson	
  Professor	
  of	
  Public	
  Affairs,	
  an	
  affiliated	
  professor	
  of	
  economics	
  and	  the	
  director	
  of	
  the	  Center	  for	
  Health	
  and	  Social	
  Policy	
  at	
  the	
  Lyndon	
  B.	
  Johnson	
  School	
  of	
  Public	
  Affairs,	
  University	
  of	
  Texas	
  at	
  Austin.

VOL. 24 / NO. 1 / SPRING 2014121

D
Carolyn J. Heinrichecades ago, highly regarded
economists such as John
Maynard Keynes predictedthat technological advances
would reduce the numberof hours Americans worked by one-half to
two-thirds.1 It was also anticipated that wewould enjoy three times the number of vacation days, allowing more time for leisure andto spend with our families. Alas, not onlyis the 40-hour workweek still standard, butparents are working more hours than ever.
In 2011, among 34.3 million U.S. families
with children, 87.2 percent had an employedparent, and in 58.5 percent of these families,
both parents worked.2 Some economists andhistorians argue that Americans are working
more because they have chosen to consume
more, but others suggest that we have to work
more to support our families. In fact, women,
whose participation in the workforce has
been steadily rising, are now the main breadwinners in 40 percent of families, up from
11 percent in 1960.3
Social and policy changes that affect how
much parents work have long been underway. In the 1960s, two-thirds of children
had a parent who stayed at home; 40 years
later, this was true for only one-third of children.4 Public approval of mothers’ working
has grown steadily. A majority of U.S. adults(57 percent) now agree that both husbands
and wives should contribute to family income,and 75 percent disagree with the idea thatwomen should return to “traditional roles.”5
Indeed, public policies have increased both
expectations that parents will work andincentives for them to do so, particularly
among low-income and single-parent families.
Before 1979, women who received welfare
were not expected to work if they had children under 16. Work requirements were then
1 22

T H E F U T U R E O F C HILDREN

tightened, and by 1988, women with children
older than two were expected to work if theyreceived public assistance. Finally, Congress
passed the Personal Responsibility and Work
Opportunities Reconciliation Act of 1996
(PRWORA), which aimed to end dependence on government benefits by promoting
job preparation, work, and marriage. Under
PRWORA, states may exempt parents withchildren under age one from work requirements but are not obligated to exempt any
parent who receives cash assistance.
The tightening of work mandates under
welfare reform, along with greater incentives
to work from successive expansions of the
Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), roused apublic debate about whether parents’ employment might enhance or harm their children’s
wellbeing. People on one side stressed the
expected benefits of parents’ work, including
positive role models for children, higher selfesteem and a sense of control among working
mothers, more productive family routines,
and higher earnings. Others saw possible
negative consequences, such as increased
stress on parents, children placed in unsafe or
unsuitable child care, and less monitoring ofolder children.6 Many researchers have sought
to use variations in the ways policies havebeen implemented over time and across states
to shed light on the relationship between parents’ work and children’s wellbeing, particularly for lower-income families.
If more parents are working, what are theimplications for their children’s wellbeing? In
this article, I investigate the pathways throughwhich parents’ employment affects theirchildren, and I evaluate the evidence on theeffects of parents’ work. I then consider public
policies intended to moderate the detrimental
effects of parents’ work and enhance the positive ones. Among the important findings:

Parents’ Employment and Children’s Wellbeing• Although U.S. policies create strong
incentives for parents to work and provide
additional income support for low-earning
parents that is beneficial to children, they
are less effective in ensuring that children whose parents work have access toappropriate and stimulating early careenvironments.
• A preponderance of evidence shows thatmost children benefit if their mothers are
their primary caregivers during their firstyear of life, and recent studies suggest that
paid or partially paid leave of six weeks to
six months would encourage more mothers
to delay their return to work and breastfeed their children longer.
• Research finds that low-quality jobs (forexample, those with low pay, irregular
hours, or few or no benefits) are linked
with higher work-related stress for parents,
which in turn detracts from children’s wellbeing. The effects of parents’ work-related
stress on children are particularly strong forsingle-mother families.
Presently, the parents whose work is most
likely to have negative effects on their children
are the same parents who are least able to takeleave, cut their paid work hours, or otherwise
secure the resources they need to provide
for their children’s wellbeing. As a nation, we
could do more (possibly by simplifying federal
tax provisions) to encourage employers tooffer benefits such as paid sick leave, which
enhance job quality and help parents balance
work with the needs of their children.

How Parents’ Employment Affects
Children’s Wellbeing
The broad societal support for women in theworkforce does not necessarily hold true formothers with young children. Only 12 percent

of people surveyed in 2009 agreed thatmothers with young children should work
full-time, including only 13 percent of mothers with young children who were working
full-time themselves. In fact, the first year ofa child’s life is when mothers are least likely
to work full-time or to work at all.7 The factthat people are more concerned about how
mothers’ work affects young children mirrors
the findings of research in developmental
psychology and neurobiology, which suggestthat some periods of early childhood areparticularly critical or sensitive for a child’s
brain development and long-term physicaland mental health.8

How Parents’ Work Can Decrease
Children’s Wellbeing
For some time, neurological research has told
us that an infant’s brain “blossoms” with newconnections (that is, synapses) following birth,and that the rate at which these connections
develop and are later pruned can be strongly
influenced by the infant’s early environment.9
Research on the healthy development of children consistently shows that children needstable family relationships, with adults who
are responsive, nurturing, and protective;
physically safe environments that allow themto explore without risk or fear of harm; andadequate nutrition and health care.10
Focusing on mothers, one way that a mother’s
work might directly influence her child’sdevelopment is through its effect on her ability to form a bond with her infant that promotes the child’s security and attachment, as
well as her ability to care for the child responsively and appropriately.11 For example, if amother’s work requires frequent or long separations from her child, their bonding could be
impeded—although many other factors could
affect the outcome, such as the quality of theVOL. 24 / NO. 1 / SPRING 2014123

Carolyn J. Heinrichcaregiver who substitutes for the mother orthe mother’s job-related stress. There are also
varying perspectives regarding when maternal employment is more likely to affect thebonding process between mother and child.
Some research suggests that a mother’s return
to work after their attachment is secure(rather than earlier in the bonding process)could be more disruptive to the child.12
When a mother returns to work may also
affect how long she breastfeeds her infant
or whether she starts breastfeeding at all.
Research overwhelmingly documents thatchildren benefit from breastfeeding exclusively in the first six months after birth andcontinuing some breastfeeding throughtheir first year.13 The benefits include better
respiratory health; fewer ear and throat infections; lower incidence of allergies, diabetes,and other diseases; lower rates of childhood
and adult obesity; and enhanced neurological development. One economic argument
suggests that if a mother expects to go back towork relatively soon after a child’s birth, thecosts of learning and equipping for breastfeeding might exceed the perceived benefits
and discourage the mother from starting.
Upon returning to work, breastfeeding
mothers need time, equipment, and accommodations for expressing milk; these may
not be available, depending on the nature of
their work and their employer. Mothers who
reduce their work hours, request extended
leaves, change employers, or quit working sothat they can continue breastfeeding may losecurrent and future earnings. These factors
likely contribute to the fact that low-income
mothers have significantly lower rates ofbreastfeeding than do wealthier mothers.
Scientists widely agree that a child’s firstmonths are among the most sensitive forhealthy development. But the trajectory of a
1 24

T H E F U T U R E O F C HILDREN

child’s development in the first three years oflife is not fixed.14 Jack Shonkoff, director of
the Harvard Center on the Developing Child,and colleagues describe the process of development “as a function of ‘nature dancing withnurture over time.’”15 In other words, fromconception onward, biology interacts withphysical and social environments to shape achild’s pathways and achievements. In thissense, the time that parents—both mothers
and fathers—spend caring for children is
likely to influence a child’s development wellbeyond the initial bonding period, and in different ways depending on the children’s age
and circumstances. Parents’ work can affectall of this.
For example, researchers have documented
that children are more likely to spend time
without parental supervision at younger ages
if their parents are working, which may inturn harm the children’s performance inschool and increase their participation inrisky behaviors.16 Theories of how parents
function and nurture their children suggestthat ongoing stress at work may cause parents to withdraw from interacting with theirchildren at home, or to be more vulnerable tostimuli that trigger conflict with their children. Researchers describe this as “role overload”: working parents may be overwhelmedby the feeling that they can’t accomplish
everything they need to do, and, in this way,
work stress becomes linked to stressful situations in the home.17 Similarly, one parent’s
work stress might bubble over to the other,
reducing the buffering influence that theother parent might have in the family.
More generally, family systems theory seesfamilies as a “subsystem” (with marital,
parental, and sibling ties) that is rooted inlarger systems—for example, the community. Conditions or changes in these larger

Parents’ Employment and Children’s Wellbeing

systems that affect one family member may
also affect his or her relationships withother family members and, in turn, the way
those family members function.18 Researchshows that parents feel pressured by external demands to work for pay, such as financial uncertainty, welfare requirements, or
the rising cost of goods that are thought tobenefit children (for example, child care,tutoring etc.).19 These demands, in turn, may
affect parents’ job satisfaction, physical andmental health, coping resources and ability
to provide socio-emotional support for theirchildren. Long work hours, lack of autonomy,
job insecurity, and a heavy workload are also
associated with adult mental health problems(for example, anxiety and depression), andparents’ mental health is believed to play afundamental role in their children’s mental
and physical development.20

How Parents’ Work Can EnhanceChildren’s Wellbeing
At the same time, working parents earnmoney that they can use to improve how
they care for their children and the quality of
their children’s environments. For example,
they might spend money on nutrition, childcare, health care, the safety of their physicalsurroundings, or opportunities for learning.
Economists describe these expenditures as“inputs” for producing “child quality.” Nobel
Prize–winning economist Gary Becker’s
theory of “household production” laid thefoundation for a large body of researchthat examines how parents allocate theirtime between work and children (or otheractivities, such as leisure), and how household
budgets (which, of course, are affected byparents’ employment) constrain or support
the investments they want to make in theirchildren. In this model, parents have to maketrade-offs as they decide how much timeto spend at work versus at home with theirchildren, and these decisions in turn dependon how much they earn (and the prices they
have to pay for goods), their preferences forinvesting in their children’s wellbeing (versus
their own), and the “productivity” of theirtime with children versus the time they
spend in other activities.21
Researchers who apply this economic model
suggest, for example, that the amount oftime parents spend with their children athome depends in part on how productive
or efficient they are both at home and in
the workplace. Parents for whom staying at
home has higher opportunity costs (that is,
those who are more productive in the workplace than at home) would be more likely
to substitute hired child care for their own
care of their children.22 Family choices also
depend on the overall family budget andwealth, and families with greater resources
are expected to invest more in their children and potentially increase their children’s
chances of success. (However, parents havedifferent preferences for investing resourcesin their children, so an increase in earnings
or other sources of household income may notnecessarily translate into a comparable rise in
spending on the children.) With these ideas
in mind, researchers have examined whether
public policies that expand financial incentives to work or require parents to work (asin the case of the mid-1990s welfare reforms)
have increased family income and, in turn,
had positive effects on children.
In addition to how much time parents spend
with their children (rather than at work) andwhen in their children’s lives they trade offtime at home with employment, what parents
do in the time they spend with their children—or how they interact, and the qualityof those interactions—is also very important
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Carolyn J. Heinrich

to their children’s wellbeing. Psychologicaland sociological theories suggest that thetypes of interactions parents have with
their children can be influenced by a number of factors, both at work and elsewhere.
For example, are there two parents in thehousehold, and are both working? How
involved is the mother vis-à-vis the father(or other caregiver) in hands-on care of thechildren? How do the quality of the parents’jobs, the stress they experience at work, theirrelationship as a couple and as a family, thechildren’s gender, and other factors affectthe parents’ interactions with and availability
to the children? In general, how central ischild rearing in the lives of the parents andthe family?23
For older children in particular, these
theories also suggest that parents play animportant part as role models through workand caregiving. Children and adolescents
may change their own behavior and goals in
response to the behavior modeled by theirparents; for example, they might devote
more time to their studies to increase theirown future job prospects. In lower-income
families where work replaces welfare, reliance on welfare may appear less attractive (orself-sufficiency more rewarding), and teenage
childbearing and other risky activities may
be reduced.24 Once again, many factors mayhelp determine how parents as role models
influence their children’s wellbeing.

How Parents’ Job Loss Affects
Children’s Wellbeing
With lingering high unemployment and longer-term unemployment among working-age
adults in the wake of the Great Recession,
we need to know more about how parents’
job loss affects children’s wellbeing. In thecontext of family systems theory, parents’ job
1 26

T H E F U T U R E O F C HILDREN

loss presents a significant shock to the family
subsystem. First, it reduces family income,sometimes substantially and permanently,
constraining parents’ ability to invest in theirchildren.25 The stress associated with job loss
can also undermine parents’ physical andmental health, which, in turn, can undermine
children’s health and family relationships.
Job loss may also affect family structure—for
example, parents may divorce26 —compounding the blow to the family subsystem. At thesame time, the strength and quality of marital and parent-child relationships, as well as
the extent to which other social contacts andsupports continue (that is, are not disrupted
by the changes that follow job loss) may limit
the negative effects that might otherwise spillover to the children.
In this section, I have described a numberof ways that parents’ employment may affectchildren’s wellbeing, whether positively or
negatively. An immense amount of researchhas examined these pathways and theirimplications for children’s wellbeing. Next, I
focus on the strongest evidence generated bythese studies.

Evidence on How Parents’ Work
Affects Children’s Wellbeing
It is especially challenging to causally linkparents’ employment to children’s wellbeing,in part because of the many intricate andintimate family factors that come into play.
Parents can’t be randomly assigned to jobs,
nor can children be randomly assigned to parents who work or don’t work, so no controlled
experiment can disentangle the influenceof these factors. Some studies have relied
on longitudinal data, such as the National
Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY) and thePanel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID),
that allow researchers to measure children’sParents’ Employment and Children’s Wellbeing

wellbeing over time and make adjustments forpotential mediating variables. Even then, it isvery difficult to determine the effects of parent’s work on children’s wellbeing with a fairlevel of confidence that the estimated effects
are not biased by factors we are not observing
or measuring.27 In this review of the research,
I take these limitations into account andindicate where there is consensus or greater
confidence in the results, as well as wherefindings are still tentative or discrepant.

Effects of Mothers’ Work on
Children’s Wellbeing
As we’ve seen, biological and developmental
studies suggest that, in the first years of achild’s life, we should be more concerned
about mothers’ work than fathers’ work.
This research has produced clear evidence
that maternal stress affects infants’ physiologic responses to stress, and that excessiveor prolonged exposure to stress can harm ayoung child’s socio-emotional and cognitive
development. Work can be one source of sustained stress for mothers; through separationfrom their mothers during working hours, it
can be a source of chronic stress for infants
as well. However, if an available and caring
adult helps children cope with stress (that is,protects children from its harmful effects),
they can develop positive responses to stressthat may help them deal with frustration andother adverse experiences later in life.28
An extensive review and summary of five
decades of research on how maternal employment affects children’s cognitive and behavioral development confirms the need toaccount for contextual factors—for example,
the timing and nature of a mother’s work, or
the quality of care provided by others besides
the mother—to discern plausible effects ofmothers’ work on their children.29 Specifically,

there is a relatively strong consensus thathigher-quality early child care (whether byparents or others) enhances children’s cognitive and social development, as well as theirlater academic achievement and behavior.30
That said, the strength and also the directionof these associations are moderated by othervariables, including family structure, income,mother’s education, and the child’s age.
One fairly cohesive story that emerges fromthis interdisciplinary research is that, insingle-parent or low-income families, thepositive effects of additional income (andreduced financial stress) that are associatedwith maternal work are likely to outweigh thepotential negative effects of less time caring
for children, as long as the substitute care is
not of poor quality—especially for children
under five, who spend more time in childcare. One study, using NLSY data, examined
mothers who worked during their children’s
first three years. The researchers found thatin low-income families, the children of thesemothers had significantly fewer behavioral
problems at ages 7–9 than did the childrenof other mothers, and that in single-parent
families, such children had significantly
higher reading scores at ages 3–4 and again
at ages 7–12.31 However, another study, which
also used NLSY data, looked at single mothers who were affected by PRWORA’s work
mandates (which significantly increased theirwork hours and their use of child care) andfound that mothers’ work had a significant
adverse effect on children’s test scores atages 3–6, reducing them by 2.6 percent on
average.32 This adverse effect appeared tobe driven by the fact that three-fourths ofthe mothers were using informal child-carearrangements (that is, non–center-basedcare). Children who were placed in formal,
center-based care showed no reduction in testscores. Other researchers, studying mothers
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Carolyn J. Heinrich

who were leaving welfare, have not found a
relationship between mothers going to workand preschool children’s cognitive achievement or behavior. However, they did find thatwhen mothers left welfare for work, adolescent children’s reading skills and mental
health improved, and their participation inrisky behaviors (for example, using drugs andalcohol) decreased.33
Research suggests that the payoff for directtime investment in children (versus higher
income from working) may be greater among
more highly educated women, and not only
for children in their early years. One study
used PSID data to examine the relationshipamong the time mothers spent caring fortheir 7- to 13-year-old children, the time theyspent working, and the children’s educational
attainment at ages 20–26. The researchers
found that greater maternal child-care time
produced benefits only for children whose
mothers had 12 or more years of schooling.34
Another study took advantage of a Swedish
policy reform in 1988 that increased paid
parental leave from 12 to 15 months to lookat the relationship between the time mothers
spent caring for their children and the children’s educational achievements.35 Assessing
the impact of maternal care relative to thecommon alternative of subsidized child care,
the researchers found a positive association
between increased parental leave and children’s scholastic performance at age 16 only
for children whose mothers had a postsecondary education; subsidized child care did nothave the same effect. The analysis showedthat other possible moderating factors, suchas mother’s mental health or the children’s
health, did not play a role in the outcome.
Evidence on how maternal employment
affects infants and very young children is
likewise mixed, although a preponderance
1 28

T H E F U T U R E O F C HILDREN

of findings suggests that children’s cognitive
development is enhanced if mothers are theirprimary caregivers in their first year and work
less than full-time through age three.36 One
seminal study used data from the National
Institute of Child Health and Human
Development’s Study of Early Child Care andYouth Development to see how the timing
and intensity of mothers’ employment affects
children’s cognitive development at age three
years.37 Children whose mothers worked at
any time before they were nine months oldscored lower on a school readiness measure, and the negative effect was largest forchildren whose mothers worked 30 or more
hours per week. Consistent with the research
discussed above, the study reported larger
negative effects for married couples than forfamilies headed by single parents, suggesting
again that additional income from employment may have more beneficial effects forchildren in single-parent households. Anotherstudy similarly found that when mothers went
to work in the first year of their children’s
lives, or worked longer hours in their secondor third years, the children’s reading andmath scores suffered.38
Mothers who go to work sooner after a child’sbirth and work longer hours are less likely
to breastfeed, which is particularly concerning given the substantial health benefits forchildren breastfed in the first six months
to one year of their lives. Starting at about
six weeks after the birth of a child, returning to work emerges as the top reason thatmothers give for discontinuing breastfeeding.39 Mothers say that the substantial timeand commitment required to express theirmilk, and the lack of accommodations inmany workplaces for pumping breast milk or
breastfeeding, deter them from breastfeeding as long as they would like. Furthermore,
recent research confirms that, compared with

Parents’ Employment and Children’s Wellbeing

Children’s cognitive
development is enhanced if
mothers are their primary
caregivers in their first year
and work less than full-timethrough age three.
mothers who feed their children formula orbreastfeed for less than six months, mothers
who breastfeed for six months or longer experience a larger decline in their earnings in
the year after giving birth and slower growthin earnings in the five years after childbirth.40
This larger, longer-term reduction in earnings is explained by the fact that mothers
who breastfeed for six months or longer tend
to take more time off from work. But the
research does not identify whether they takemore time off because of their own changing
views about work versus time with family orwhether they feel pushed out because it’s sohard to combine work with breastfeeding andinfant care. Regardless, the economic penalty
these mothers pay is cause for concern, considering that both the rate and duration ofbreastfeeding are significantly lower among
poorer, less-educated working women thanamong wealthier, better-educated mothers(whether employed or unemployed).

Effects of Parents’ Job Loss
Most researchers who study how parents’work affects children have focused primarily on how mothers allocate their time
between work and child care, although theyalso emphasize that other family members,
particularly fathers, play an important role inproviding financial support, ensuring quality

substitute care, and buffering children fromwork-related stress. Studies of fathers suggest
that, as with mothers, both the level of theirinvolvement and their warmth and responsiveness determine the extent of their influence on children’s behavior and academic
achievement.41
Empirical evidence also shows that children
are more likely to be affected by a father’s job
loss than by a mother’s.42 A parent’s job loss
can bring considerable financial and mental
distress that reverberates through the familysystem. For example, in one study, Slovakian
adolescents perceived lower support fromfathers who experienced unemployment,
likely because of the stress associated withthe father’s job loss.43 But the amount of
support they perceived from their mothers was not affected by either the father’sor mother’s job loss, and high support fromthe mother was particularly protective forthe health of adolescents whose father lost
his job. Similarly, other research has foundthat women experience less stress and fewer
mental health problems in the face of theirown unemployment than do men.44
To study the relationship between parents’ job loss and children’s development,
researchers must disentangle the influenceof parent characteristics, as well as parentchild interactions, that affect children’s
wellbeing even in the absence of job loss
(for example, parents’ mental health, maritalor family relationship quality, etc.). When acompany closes or downsizes, researchers
can empirically examine the effects of job
losses that are not associated with parents’
individual characteristics. For example, one
study from Norway examined the effects ofthis kind of abrupt parental job loss, occurring when children were in tenth grade,on the children’s grade point averages
VOL. 24 / NO. 1 / SPRING 2014129

Carolyn J. Heinrich(GPAs) in their high school graduation year.
Children whose fathers lost their jobs hada significantly lower graduation-year GPA,
but a mother’s job loss had no significant
effects. Among children whose fathers had
lower earnings before losing their jobs, andthose who lived in communities with weaker
job markets, the effect of fathers’ job loss on
GPA was nearly twice as large. Seeking the
precise cause of the negative effect on GPA,
the researchers were able to rule out explanations tied to loss of family income, changes
in maternal employment or time inputs, andmarital dissolution and relocation. Mental
distress associated with job loss appeared tobe the driving factor.
The Norwegian findings echo those of a U.S.based study that used data on job loss andchildren’s educational achievement from the
1996, 2001, and 2004 panels of the Surveyof Income and Program Participation.45
Focusing on short-term measures of children’s educational progress, the researchers
found that parents’ job loss increased thelikelihood that children would be retainedin school by approximately 15 percent.
Furthermore, this negative effect was more
likely among children with less-educatedparents (those with a high school degree
or less). And a study of Canadian families,
which included some fathers who lost theirjobs when their company closed, found thatparents’ job loss diminished children’s longterm labor market prospects. Sons who were
11 to 14 years old when their fathers lost ajob saw their earnings as adults reduced byabout 9 percent, on average; daughters also
saw lower earnings later in life, though the
reduction was imprecisely estimated. Like
the Norwegian study, this study showed nolink between this negative effect and divorce,
residential relocation, or changes in mothers’ earnings and employment; like the U.S.
1 30

T H E F U T U R E O F C HILDREN

study, it found that negative effects on children were more prevalent among families
who had the lowest incomes before the parents’ job loss. The study’s authors could not
say what best accounted for the detrimental
long-term effect on children’s economic
prospects: the stress associated with parents’
job loss, or the loss of family income itself.

Children in poorer or singleparent families face a greater
likelihood that their parents’work will have harmful effects
on their wellbeing.
Parents’ Job Characteristics andChildren’s Wellbeing
Losing a job is a life-altering event for families, but research also suggests that otheraspects of parents’ work, such as job quality,
can strongly affect how much time parents
spend with children and the nature of theirinteractions. Theory and empirical research
identify four key aspects of job quality as
particularly germane to the effects of parents’ work on children’s wellbeing: the levelof job security that parents perceive they
have, which relates to feelings of financial
stability; how much control parents haveover what they do in their work; flexibility inwork scheduling (for example, start and end
times); and paid family leave (for example,
maternity/paternity and other types of
personal or family leave). Using an index ofjob quality based on these four dimensions
and data from the Longitudinal Study ofAustralian Children, one team of researchers analyzed the relationship between job
quality and a “child difficulties score,” which

Parents’ Employment and Children’s Wellbeing

measured children’s distress, negative or
oppositional behaviors, inattention or hyperactivity, and peer problems.46 They found astrong relationship between job quality andchildren’s difficulties that was mediated byparents’ distress (both mothers’ and fathers’);
that is, when parents were more stressed,
their children were more likely to experience
difficulties. This relationship was particularly
strong in single-mother families.
Among the four aspects of job quality,
research shows, parents’ work schedules andtheir degree of flexibility are particularly
important for children. Studies of parents’shift work have found that preschool and elementary school children are significantly more
likely to have behavioral problems when theirparents work at night.47 The researchers speculated that the mental stress of night work,
as well as less effective parenting behaviors
linked to such work schedules, might accountfor these detrimental effects. Several studies
that used NLSY data to examine how parents’nonstandard work schedules affect children’s wellbeing have found similar results.48
Taking into account factors such as children’sage, gender, and family income, nighttime
work by both mothers and fathers has beenfound to be more harmful to children, andto parents’ relationships with their children,than work on other shifts. Among adolescentchildren, there is a strong association between
the number of years that their mothers andfathers work the night shift and risky behaviors. Night shift work reduces the amountof time mothers spend with their children,
fathers’ knowledge of children’s whereabouts,
fathers’ closeness to their children, and thequality of the home environment. The relative
importance of these factors varies with theage of the child, and the size of the effects
also varies for some subgroups: boys, children
in poorer or single-parent families, and whoseparents work in nonprofessional occupations
experience the most negative effects.
In an Australian study that focused on children’s health, researchers found that children whose parents, and particularly fathers,
worked nonstandard schedules were significantly more likely to be obese or overweight,
even after adjusting for household income
and family and lifestyle factors.49 The addedpressure created by fathers’ nonstandard
work hours appeared to be borne largely bymothers, who in turn compromised in thefamily food environment (for example, by buying more fully prepared meals that tended tobe higher in fat, sugar, and salt and larger in
portion size). Another study, of adolescents,
found a positive association between mothers’
nonstandard work schedules and children’s
body mass index (BMI), suggesting that aschildren get older and have less adult supervision, mothers’ work schedules grow increasingly important.50 Other research suggeststhat parental supervision, which is affected byparental work hours and schedules, is particularly critical for children’s wellbeing in lowincome, single-parent families, or in families
where parents’ night and evening shift work
is a condition of employment.51 Parents who
work nonstandard shifts may experience more
physical and emotional stress, and parents’stress is in turn known to worsen parent-childinteractions and children’s behavior.52
The empirical evidence I’ve presented—
from a range of studies in the United Statesand other countries that explore numerous ways parents’ work might affect children—consistently suggests that children
in poorer or single-parent families face agreater likelihood that their parents’ work
will have harmful effects on their wellbeing.
Qualitative research further illuminates themany ways that the stress associated with
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Carolyn J. Heinricheconomic struggles, poor job quality, lack ofsupport at home, limited child care choices,and other factors can compound the difficulties that parents and children in thesefamilies face. For example, Ask the Children,a study involving more than 1,000 children ingrades 3–12, supports the empirical findingthat child-care arrangements may be especially critical to the development of children
in lower-income families; children in lowerquality child care, which low-income families
are more likely to use, are more affected bytheir mothers’ behavior (particularly theirwarmth and responsiveness).53 In addition,
low-income parents are less likely to hold jobs
with attractive attributes such as high job
security and stability, autonomy in their work,
meaningful work tasks, low frustration, and a
supportive work-life culture, and they may beless likely to have positive feelings about theirwork roles. Ask the Children’s data suggestthat when parents value their work and thinkthat they are doing the right thing for themselves and their families, whether by working
or by staying home, their children are more
likely to fare well, because this attitude will
be reflected in their care and responsiveness.
Furthermore, when parents have positive
experiences at work, and in combining workand family responsibilities, the potential
benefits for children of parents’ serving asrole models through their work—such as
greater self-sufficiency and independence,social competence, and aspirations for theirown schooling and career success—are more
likely to be realized.

Policies That Address Parents’Work and Children’s Wellbeing
The preceding sections have described waysthat parents’ work may affect children’s
wellbeing, as well as the evidence on both
positive and negative effects of parents’ work.
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T H E F U T U R E O F C HILDREN

Few would dispute, for example, that parents’ employment generates income that is
key to promoting the health and wellbeingof children, the quality of their environments, and their prospects for future
productivity and success in nurturing thenext generation. At the same time, evidenceof potential negative effects on children isalso compelling, and the ways that parents’
employment might bring about harm arecomplex and linked to family resources andfunctioning. Ideally, public policies would
bolster the positive effects of parents’ work
on children’s wellbeing and minimize thedetrimental effects.
Data from the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD)are frequently used to compare parental
employment and work support policies
across nations. OECD data for 18 developed countries show that employment
rates among mothers in the United States
are very comparable to those elsewhere.
For example, in 2002, about 69 percent of
U.S. mothers with children aged 6–14 were
employed, equaling the OECD-18 average,
while about 60 percent of U.S. motherswith children aged 3–5 and 56.6 percent
with children under age three were
employed, 3.5–4 percentage points below
the OECD-18 averages.54 As of 2009,
approximately 70 percent of women aged
25–54 in the United States and in OECD
countries were employed, suggesting thatwomen with school-age children are participating in the labor force at about the samerate as working-age women across developed countries. Yet U.S. public policies thatare intended to support working parents andtheir families look very different from thosefound elsewhere.

Parents’ Employment and Children’s Wellbeing

Income Support
The U.S. ranks third among 20 OECD
countries in its support of families throughcash transfers and tax benefits, which areclosely linked to reductions in child poverty(as well as to parents’ employment in the
United States).55 These income supports,
which increased steadily from 1995 to 2005
through the expansion of the EITC earnings
supplements, are particularly important for
low-income parents. Parental employment is
one of the most important factors in reducing the risk of child poverty, and numerous
studies have found that the EITC promotes
parental work, especially among single mothers, suggesting that these benefits may play a
key role in improving children’s wellbeing.56
There is also growing evidence of strong positive linkages between earnings supplements
for working parents and young children’s
educational performance, as well as theirlater educational attainment and labor market
earnings.57 Furthermore, we know that higher
income is associated with better home environments. Still, researchers who explore therole of income in improving children’s homeenvironments and, in turn, children’s behavior
and academic readiness have found weakerevidence for a direct causal association
between income and better child outcomes.58
More generally, scholars who have synthesized the research and policy evidence appear
to concur that policies that increase family
income are less likely to improve children’s
wellbeing when support is weak for parental
leave to care for children (for example, in thefirst year after birth or during illness) or for
quality substitute care.59

Parental Leave
Worldwide, one of the most common policies
to support working parents and their families is paid parental leave. In fact, the UnitedStates is among only four of 173 nations
that do not guarantee paid parental leave,
although the 1993 Family and Medical Leave
Act (FMLA) gives some parents the right totake 12 weeks of unpaid leave after the birth(or adoption) of a child.60 In a recent Futureof Children article, Christopher Ruhm thoroughly reviewed state family leave policies,
including those of six states that offer someform of paid leave (either short-term paid
leave or temporary disability insurance).61 His
review makes clear the comparative generosity of European policies, which provide paid
maternity leave for 14–20 weeks, at 70 to 100
percent of the mother’s pre-childbirth wages.
Empirical studies of the relationship amongfamily leave policies and children’s material
wellbeing, health and educational attainment
find that paid parental leave, combined withgenerous public support for child care andearly education, are significantly correlatedwith improved health and higher educational
attainment among children.62 One analysis, using 1969–94 data from 16 European
countries, showed that associations between
paid parental leave and children’s health andwellbeing were strongest for infants aged
2–12 months, possibly because mothers whotake paid leave are more likely to breastfeed.63 One study examined a Canadianpolicy change that expanded paid parental
leave, from 15 weeks of paid leave for mothers plus 10 weeks of paid leave that could be
split between mothers and fathers to a totalof 50 weeks of paid leave, of which 35 weeks
could be shared between parents.64 Looking
specifically at how the change affected theamount of time mothers spent at home andhow long they breastfed, the researchers
found that after the change, mothers spent
2.3 more months at home (a 28 percent
increase) and breastfed about one month
longer. Mothers were also significantly more
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Carolyn J. Heinrichlikely to say they stopped breastfeeding
because they were introducing solid food,rather than because they were going back towork. And a recent analysis of California’s
paid parental leave policy, using 1999–2010
data from the Current Population Survey,
found that even a far less generous policy (sixweeks of partially paid leave) substantially
increased maternity and family leave-taking(compared with unpaid leave under FMLA),
especially among disadvantaged mothers,with no evidence of negative effects on mothers’ future labor market earnings.65
Finally, a recent study examined a 1977
Norwegian policy reform that increased
parental leave from 12 weeks of unpaid leave(the current U.S. policy) to four months ofpaid leave and 12 months of unpaid leave.
Because several decades have passed since
the reform took effect, the researchers wereable to examine its longer-term effects. They
found that children whose mothers spent
more time with them during their first yearof life, thanks to the expanded parental leave,
were more likely to finish high school and had
5 percent higher earnings at age 30. These
effects were larger for children whose mothers had less than 10 years of education; thesechildren realized 8 percent higher earnings
at age 30.

Child Care
The authors of the Norwegian study noted
that, at the time of the 1977 parental leave
reform, very little high-quality child care
was available for children under two years(the primary alternative was grandparents orother informal care). Some of the research
described earlier suggests that, depending on
the quantity and quality, formal child carecan have positive effects on children’s cognitive development, and that it is potentially
1 34

T H E F U T U R E O F C HILDREN

most beneficial for disadvantaged children.
Public spending on child care in the UnitedStates comes primarily through the Child
Care and Development Fund (CCDF), a
federal block grant that aims to help lowincome families with work-related child careexpenses. Parents can use these subsidies
for formal child care, family day care or careprovided in their own home or in the homeof another family member; other than for the
Head Start program, the rate of the subsidy
is not tied to measures of program quality.66
In fiscal year 2010, states spent $9.5 billion in combined federal and state funds onchild care subsidies for low-income families,
including CCDF funds as well as Temporary
Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) transfers into CCDF.
The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit isanother form of subsidy that working parents can use for child care. The credit canrefund 20 to 35 percent of day-care expenses
and has no restrictions on the type of careparents can purchase. However, because thistax credit is nonrefundable (that is, it can’t
reduce the amount of tax owed to less thanzero), low-income families who owe little orno income tax derive little benefit. Similarly,
the cost of employer-provided dependent
care is excluded from taxable income, anotherform of public support for child care that is
not targeted to low-income families.
Overall, the United States spends less thanother developed countries on its public childcare programs (both in absolute terms and asa percentage of gross domestic product), andit has the lowest share of children enrolled informal child care.67 Research confirms thatchild care subsidies encourage mothers towork and increase parents’ use of child care,although it also suggests that a preponderance of low-quality options, as well as lack of

Parents’ Employment and Children’s Wellbeing

information about better-quality programsand their costs, may push low-income families toward informal or inferior child care.
Still, evidence on the effects of child care
subsidies on children’s wellbeing is mixed.
One recent study suggests that children
with better-educated mothers who received
subsidized care experienced substantial
increases in behavioral problems, whereas
children with less-educated mothers (a highschool degree or less) were more likely toshow improvements in positive social behaviors. The better-educated mothers not only
worked more hours, but they were also lesslikely to enroll their children in center- andfamily-based care.68

Worker Supports and Workplace
Flexibility
As we’ve seen, research has also revealed
associations between parental job quality(that is, job security, flexibility, work schedules, etc.) and children’s wellbeing, suggesting children’s outcomes could be enhanced
through policies that improve worker supports, reduce parents’ job-related stressand increase parents’ ability to respond totheir children’s needs. Employee benefits
and supports such as paid sick leave, flexible
work hours, time off for children’s healthand educational needs, breastfeeding breaks,
premium pay for night shift work and paidvacation (in additional to paid parental leaveand child care support) are mandatory inmost advanced countries. But among thesebenefits and supports, only breastfeeding
breaks are required in the United States(through legislation passed only in 2010). A
group of scholars analyzed a global databaseof legislation that mandates these worker
support policies for 175 countries and foundno negative associations between moregenerous national policies and measures of

the nations’ economic competitiveness.69 In
fact, their review of the research suggeststhat these policies have a number of potential
benefits for employers, workers, and children,
including increased employee retention andproductivity, lower turnover and absenteeism,
reduced business costs and increased profitability, lower parental stress, increased parental involvement with children, higher rates
of child immunization, and improved childhealth, behavior, and cognitive achievement.
These findings raise the question of why theUnited States trails its developed-country
peers (and some developing countries) in
mandating worker benefits. One reason isthat U.S. employers have strongly opposed
legislation to increase benefits such as paid
parental leave, sick leave, and other workplace flexibility provisions, on the grounds
that the costs would be too high and would
compromise their competitiveness.70 But theCouncil of Economic Advisors (CEA) investigated workplace flexibility and found that
few employers have accurate information
about the costs and benefits of workplace
flexibility policies.71 In addition, because thecosts and benefits of expanding workplace
flexibility are likely to differ across industries and by employer size, it is difficult toassess how wider adoption of more generous
worker supports might benefit or harm not
only employers and workers, but also society
and the U.S. economy overall. Furthermore,
not only do we lack data on the prevalenceof existing workplace flexibility practices,
but employers and employees differ in theirreports of whether such supports are available. The CEA used data from two surveys—
one of employers and one of employees—to
examine to what extent private sector
employers are adapting their policies tochanges in workforce participation (and thegrowing potential for work-family conflicts).
VOL. 24 / NO. 1 / SPRING 2014135

Carolyn J. HeinrichMore than half of employers indicated thatthey gave at least some workers the flexibility
to change their work start and end times,
but fewer than one-third of full-time workers and only 39 percent of part-time workers reported having this flexibility. Other
research shows that just 30 percent of U.S.
employees are offered paid sick leave thatthey can use for themselves or to care forfamily members.72
The CEA’s finding that less-skilled workers
are less likely than their more highly skilledcounterparts to have workplace flexibility is
especially worrisome. Parents in low-paid,
low-skilled positions are also more likely towork a nonstandard shift as a requirementof their job (rather than for work–familybalance).73 And under FMLA, individual
employees are eligible only if they worked atleast 1,250 hours in the previous year, andemployers with fewer than 50 workers do
not have to provide unpaid leave. About halfof workers do not qualify for unpaid familyleave under FMLA, and these are more likely
to be less-skilled, low-income workers.74 In
effect, the parents of families that are most at
risk of seeing harmful spillover effects fromwork and disruptions to family routines are
the same parents who are least able to takeleave, cut their paid work hours, or reschedule them on occasion to accommodate theirchildren’s needs.75

Mitigating Negative Effects of Job Loss
For families, the most readily apparent
impact of job loss and unemployment is areduction in income. Workers who become
unemployed through no fault of their own
may receive unemployment insurance benefits, supported primarily through a tax on
employers. This temporary financial assistance typically provides up to 50 percent
1 36

T H E F U T U R E O F C HILDREN

of prior weekly earnings, but the amountand duration are determined by state law.
Following the 2007 recession, the lengthof time during which people could receive
benefits was temporarily extended beyond theusual 26 weeks in most states. In addition,
those without a job may receive employment
and training services—including job-searchand job-placement assistance, job counseling and assessment, vocational training, andsupport services—through federal funds
from the Workforce Investment Act that are
disbursed to states to help unemployed anddislocated workers find new jobs. Programsfor dislocated workers, however, are among
the least effective of public employment andtraining services. Research shows that they
have modest effects on employment and areunlikely to help workers fully recover theirlost earnings.76
In addition, our policy responses to job loss
do not recognize or address the documented
negative effects on other family membersthat are associated with the stress of job loss,
and its implications for family functioning.
Job counseling is available to the worker, butother support services are typically limited
to individual, work-oriented supports such astransportation assistance. To better cope withstress and mitigate job loss’s negative effects
on children, family members may need psychological and family counseling, alcohol anddrug abuse counseling, preventive health care(because they’ve lost health-care benefits),
and food and nutritional assistance.77

Policy Recommendations
What new policies, or improvements toexisting policies, would better support working parents, promote the positive effects ofparents’ work on children’s wellbeing, andreduce the harmful consequences of parents’Parents’ Employment and Children’s Wellbeing

work? The EITC, for example, is one of
the most successful policies for supporting
working families. The rate of participationis consistently high, and Congress recently
expanded benefits for larger families and married couples. In addition, about half the U.S.
states have enacted their own earned income
credit policies that include expectations andincentives for parents to work. But althoughcommunity outreach and tax programs for
low-income workers have helped lower thecosts of filing and receiving the benefit, anestimated 15 to 25 percent of eligible families are not claiming the EITC.78 One way to
get more families to claim the credit might
be to simplify tax filing by consolidating the
EITC with other tax provisions for families(for example, the Child and Dependent Care
Credit) into a single credit, while also raising the income level at which benefits phaseout to increase the level of support the credit
provides for working parents.79

every family. One policy option would befederally mandated paid leave for either
mothers or fathers in the first weeks ormonths of a child’s life. Since 2004, for example, California has mandated six weeks ofpartially paid leave (for a newborn, a foster or
adopted child, or other family health needs),
and this policy could be adopted nationwide.
The latest research on California’s leave
policy shows substantial increases (three
weeks on average) in use of maternity leave,with particularly large increases among lesseducated, unmarried, and minority mothers.
Studies in other countries such as Germany
have not shown additional benefits for children (in terms of their educational success)or parents’ income beyond six months ofmandated parental leave, suggesting that a
paid or partially paid leave of somewhere
between six weeks and six months should be
adequate to generate benefits for parents andchildren alike.80

There are other opportunities to promotehealthier working families and improvechildren’s wellbeing. The United States
stands apart from other developed countries
in its near absence of policies that mandate employee work supports. Instead, U.S.
employers determine on their own to what
extent and to which employees they grantwork flexibility or other family-oriented
benefits. The result is that low-income or lowskilled workers and single parents, who mayneed additional support the most to improve
nurturing and care arrangements for theirchildren, are least likely to get such support.

Low-income or low-skilledworkers and single parents,
who may need additional
support the most to
improve nurturing andcare arrangements for theirchildren, are least likely
to get such support.

Though research confirms that the first three
to six months of an infant’s life constitutea particularly sensitive time for the child’sdevelopment and for bonding with caregivers,
it is not definitively established that the caregiver should be the mother, full time, inAn alternative to paid parental leave would bea fixed cash allowance provided by the federal
government, or via federal cost-sharing withstates, that would both augment and replace
existing public investments in child care (thatis, the Child and Dependent Care Credit, theVOL. 24 / NO. 1 / SPRING 2014137

Carolyn J. Heinrich

Exclusion for Employer-Provided Dependent
Care Expenses, the Child Care and Development Fund, and the Title XX Social
Services Block Grant) and let parents use themoney either to purchase high-quality earlychild care or to offset the earnings they lose
when they spend time out of the labor force
after welcoming a new child into the family.
This option would be more flexible for families. It could accommodate any adult family
member’s leave from employment to care forthe child, and if the allowance were set ata fixed amount, it would cover a larger
fraction of lost wages in families with lower
income. In addition, families could makechoices that would reflect their own circumstances, such as the availability of quality
child-care providers, the implications oftaking time off for their career progression,
the age and health of other children in thefamily, and many others. Employers would
be on equal footing nationally in terms of thecosts of offering a basic family work support,
and they could supplement the allowancewith other benefits as their needs allowed.
Like the EITC, the benefit could be phasedout as family income increased.
How could a cash allowance be administered to ensure that children benefited fromthe funds? Parents could be required to
document their leave from work (in conjunction with their employer), or if parents chose
to use the allowance to purchase highquality early child care, they could be
required to document both their expenditures and the qualifications of the child-careprovider. This type of work support should
go hand in hand with more concerted policy
efforts to inform parents about why choosing high-quality child care is important, toimprove the information available to themso that they can make better choices, and to
give them financial incentives to do so.
1 38

T H E F U T U R E O F C HILDREN

If implemented well, this type of flexible
cash allowance should achieve the goal,
articulated by David Blau, an economist andexpert on child care policy, of subsidizing thecosts of raising children “without favoringmarket child care costs over the forgone
earnings cost of a parent who stays home tocare for a child.”81
Another area of family work support policy
where the United States is clearly out of stepwith both developed and developing countries across the globe is the mandatory provision of paid sick leave. Data from the March2012 National Compensation Survey (NCS),
which measures employee benefits, show that
paid sick leave was offered to 66 percent
of civilian workers and 61 percent of thoseworking in private industry, but to just
52 percent of workers in small private firms(those with fewer than 100 employees),
40 percent of workers in private-sector
service occupations, and barely a quarterof part-time workers.82 At the same time,
research suggests not requiring some minimal paid sick leave benefit brings high costs
for families and society alike. A recent Futureof Children article indicated that parents
with access to paid sick leave were more than
five times as likely to be able to care for theirsick children. This was especially importantfor families with a chronically ill child, forwhom lack of access to paid sick leave poseda substantial risk that parents would lose
their jobs.83 Furthermore, research discussed
earlier in this article provides convincing
evidence of a strong connection between
parents’ and children’s mental health, and acorresponding relationship between parents’
involvement and responsiveness and children’s cognitive achievement and behavior.
One option would be to elevate the provisionof sick leave to be on par with the availability

Parents’ Employment and Children’s Wellbeingof health care insurance coverage. For
example, the Affordable Care Act provides fora Health Coverage Tax Credit for employers
who provide health insurance to employees;
employers deduct the costs of these benefits and get the added bonus of a tax credit.
Without mandating sick leave, a similar credit
could give employers an incentive to offer it.
The United States currently uses its tax
code to spur employers to provide a rangeof other benefits, including educational andtuition assistance, life insurance, commuting
assistance, and more; these are nontaxable
for employees and deductible by the firm.
However, access and participation by employees follow consistent patterns—they arelowest for workers in small firms and service
occupations and highest for workers in large
firms and government agencies, presumably
because administrative costs are influenced
by organization size and employee tenure.84
One possibility would be to explore reducing
the administrative burden, for example, bygiving employers a single deduction based on
the generosity of the dollar-equivalent valueof the menu of benefits they offer combinedwith their employee participation rate. The
CEA study discussed earlier noted that oneof the reasons for discrepancies between
employers and employees in reporting theavailability of workplace flexibility and otherbenefits is that employers do not necessarily
make these benefits available to all employees;
less-skilled, lower-income workers are more
likely to be left out. Economic theory, however, suggests that caution may be warranted:
workers could ultimately bear a larger fractionof these costs if there are trade-offs between
wage offers from employers and these benefits. Although we still lack empirical workon this issue, a recent study that examined
employer contributions to 401(k) plans foundthat associated reductions in wages weremuch less (in percentage terms) for lowincome than for higher-income workers.85
For parents who lose their jobs, unemployment insurance provides some temporary
financial relief. Employment and training
services are minimally effective in helping
them find new jobs and do not help to fully
replace lost earnings. A number of possible
reforms to the unemployment insurance
system have been proposed, including somethat would shift more resources toward
workers with larger, long-term wage losses.
One such alternative would replace unemployment insurance with a combination of
wage loss insurance—which would supplement the earnings of workers who can find
only lower-wage employment after losing a
job—and temporary earnings replacement
accounts, to which workers would also makecontributions. A larger share of the current
unemployment insurance system’s resources
would, in effect, be redirected toward helping
those experiencing significant long-term wage
losses to maintain their living standards, witha smaller share going to short-term cash assistance for those enduring more limited boutsof unemployment or wage loss. Analyses
suggest that this type of reform would reachmore low-income families and would likely
also strengthen parents’ incentives to findnew employment.86 In addition, the needbased payments that may currently accompany an individual’s job search in workforce
development programs could be made more
flexible, so that they could be used for any
family member’s needs during the period of
unemployment (for example, for family, psychological, or substance abuse counseling).
Finally, the articles in this issue of the
Future of Children share a focus on two
generations—parents and their children—and this discussion of parents’ employment
VOL. 24 / NO. 1 / SPRING 2014139

Carolyn J. Heinrichand children’s wellbeing has clearly shown
how intimately and importantly parents’work participation is linked to their ability
to effectively care for their children (and totheir children’s development). In this regard,
policies that strengthen and support parents
in their roles both as worker and parent could
generate long-term benefits for the next
generation, which in turn should advance thewellbeing of subsequent generations.87
One common model among programs
that have an explicit two-generation focus
includes three core components: high-quality
early-childhood education; job training thatgives parents opportunities to upgrade theirworkforce skills for high-demand occupations; and comprehensive family and peer
support services.88 The Tulsa County Career
Advance program, in Oklahoma, initiatedin 2009 by the Community Action Project(CAP), is an example of just such a twogeneration intervention; it targets parents
with children in Head Start and Early Head
Start for workforce development services (see1 40

T H E F U T U R E O F C HILDREN

the article in this issue by P. Lindsay ChaseLansdale and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn). If these
programs successfully help parents securejobs with higher levels of job security, wages,
and other attributes that improve how they
feel about their work and the role models andencouragement they offer to their children,then the children may very well reap benefits
beyond those associated with the educationand stronger financial supports families realize through the programs. However, evaluations that are currently under way, such as
the experimental evaluation of Enhanced
Early Head Start, also point to difficulties
in their implementation that may lessen
these programs’ effects.89 As new, innovative
strategies attempt to better engage parents,
rigorous evaluations of these programs
should continue, so that policy makers get theevidence they need to weigh these programs’costs and benefits, to assess whether they canbe introduced more widely, and to determine
their potential for net returns to society andto disadvantaged families.

Parents’ Employment and Children’s Wellbeing

ENDNOTES
1. Annalyn Kurtz, “The Four-Day Work Week,” CNN Money, July 9, 2013, http://money.cnn.
com/2013/07/09/news/economy/shorter-work-week/index.html.
2. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Employment Characteristics of Families—2011,” news release, April 26,
2012, http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/famee_04262012.pdf.
3. Wendy Wang, Kim Parker, and Paul Taylor, Breadwinner Moms (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center,2013), http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2013/05/Breadwinner_moms_final.pdf.
4. Jane Waldfogel, What Children Need (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006).
5. Pew Research Center, The Harried Life of the Working Mother (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center,2009), http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2009/10/01/the-harried-life-of-the-working-mother.
6. Greg J. Duncan and P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, eds., For Better and for Worse: Welfare Reform and theWell-Being of Children and Families (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2001).
7. Christopher J. Ruhm, “Parental Employment and Child Cognitive Development,” Journal of Human
Resources 39 (2004): 155–92.
8. Jack P. Shonkoff and Deborah A. Phillips, eds., From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early
Childhood Development (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2000); Rachel Lucas-Thompson,
Wendy Goldberg, and JoAnn Prause, “Maternal Work Early in the Lives of Children and Its Distal
Associations with Achievement and Behavior Problems: A Meta-Analysis,” Psychological Bulletin 136(2010): 915–42, doi: 10.1037/a0020875.
9. Mark H. Johnson, Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience: An Introduction, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell,2005).
10. Jack P. Shonkoff et al., “Technical Report: The Lifelong Effects of Early Childhood Adversity and Toxic
Stress,” Pediatrics 129 (2012): e232–46, doi: 10.1542/peds.2011-2663.
11. Jay Belsky, “Emanuel Miller Lecture: Developmental Risks (Still) Associated with Early Childcare,”
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 42 (2001): 845–59.
12. P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale and Margaret Tresch Owen, “Maternal Employment in a Family Context:
Effects of Infant–Mother and Infant–Father Attachments,” Child Development 58 (1987): 1505–12.
13. American Academy of Pediatrics, “Breastfeeding and the Use of Human Milk,” Pediatrics 129 (2012):
e827–41.
14. Paul A. Howard-Jones, Elizabeth V. Washbrook, and Sara Meadows, “The Timing of Educational
Investment: A Neuroscientific Perspective,” Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience 2 (2012): S18–29.
15. Shonkoff et al., “Lifelong Effects.”
16. Waldfogel, What Children Need; Jeffrey Grogger and Lynn A. Karoly, Welfare Reform: Effects of a Decadeof Change (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005).
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38. Ruhm, “Parental Employment.”

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39. Michael Baker and Kevin Milligan, “Maternal Employment, Breastfeeding and Health: Evidence from
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54. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), “Mothers in Paid Employment,” inSociety at a Glance 2006: OECD Social Indicators (Paris: OECD Publishing, 2007): 173–211, doi: 10.1787/
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71. Council of Economic Advisers, Work-Life Balance and the Economics of Workplace Flexibility(Washington, DC: Executive Office of the President, 2010), www.whitehouse.gov/files/documents/100331cea-economics-workplace-flexibility.pdf.
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86. Jeffrey Kling, Fundamental Restructuring of Unemployment Insurance: Wage-Loss Insurance andTemporary Earnings Replacement Accounts (policy brief, Brookings Institution Hamilton Project,
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