Berger, Lawrence Marc
Hill, Jennifer L.
Waldfogel, Jane
Family Leave and Child Outcomes: Evidence from the NLSY
Presented: Atlanta, GA, Population Association of America Annual Meetings, May 2002
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Breastfeeding; Child Health; Leave, Family or Maternity/Paternity; Maternal Employment; Pre/post Natal Health Care;

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

While family leave policies have been advocated on the grounds that they allow new mothers to take longer maternity leaves, thus promoting better child outcomes, the empirical evidence on the connection between leave policies, leave-taking, and child outcomes is scarce. In this paper, we utilize data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) to estimate both the effect of family leave coverage on leave-taking, and the effect of leave-taking on child outcomes. Our data include detailed measures of family leave coverage, usage, and length of leave, child health and development, and parental behaviors. By shedding light on the pathway from family leave policies to child outcomes, the results prove relevant not only to the literature on the effects of early experiences on child outcomes, but also to the current policy debate about allowing more workers to take leaves and for longer periods of time.

Berger, Hill and Waldfogel (2002) find that family leave coverage is associated with more breast-feeding and that children whose mothers did not have family leave coverage scored lower on tests of their cognitive ability at ages 3 and 4. They also document that women who return to work between 0 and 6 weeks following the birth of a child are less likely to breast-feed, to have taken their child to a well baby visit and to have had their child immunized.

Berger, Lawrence Marc
Hill, Jennifer L.
Waldfogel, Jane
Maternity Leave, Early Maternal Employment and Child Health and Development in the US
Economic Journal 115,501 (February 2005): F29-F47.
Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0013-0133.2005.00971.x/abstract
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Royal Economic Society (RES)
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Behavioral Problems; Breastfeeding; Child Development; Child Health; Leave, Family or Maternity/Paternity; Maternal Employment; Re-employment;

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

This paper uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to explore links between mothers' returns to work within 12 weeks of giving birth and health and developmental outcomes for their children. OLS models and propensity score matching methods are utilised to account for selection bias. Considerable associations between early returns to work and children's outcomes are found suggesting causal relationships between early returns to work and reductions in breastfeeding and immunisations, as well as increases in externalising behaviour problems. These results are generally stronger for mothers who return to work full-time within 12 weeks of giving birth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Berger, Lawrence Marc
Hill, Jennifer L.
Waldfogel, Jane
Parental Leave Policies, Early Maternal Employment, and Child Outcomes in the U.S.
Presented: Boston, MA, Population Association of America Meetings, April 2004
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Breastfeeding; Child Health; Leave, Family or Maternity/Paternity; Maternal Employment; Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT);

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

This paper explores links between parental leave policies, the length of time mothers remain at home after giving birth, and cognitive, behavioural, and health related outcomes for children. We use state leave laws and unionization rates as instruments to estimate the effect of (instrumented) early maternal employment on a series of child outcomes in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Health related outcomes include whether the child received preventive "well-baby" care and the frequency of that "well-baby" care in the first year of life, whether the child was breast-fed and the duration of breast-feeding in the first year of life, and whether the child was fully immunized by age 18 months. We also examine the effects of (instrumented) early maternal employment on child cognitive and behavioural outcomes assessed at age 3 or 4. Preliminary results suggest that the shortfall in parental leave coverage in the U.S. may affect child well-being.

Berger, Lawrence Marc
Waldfogel, Jane
Determinants of Out-of-Home Living Arrangements for Children: To What Extent Do Family Resources, Family Structures, and Public Policies Make a Difference?
Presented: Minneapolis, MN, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, May 2003
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Family Structure; Foster Care; Parents, Single; Residence; Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF); Welfare;

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

A large and growing number of children in the U.S. spend some part of their childhood in living arrangements that do not include their birth parents. This paper uses data from the NLSY to estimate the effects of income and poverty, family structure, and income support policies on the probabilities that children are living in various out-of-home settings. Results suggest that lower-income, single-parent, and mother-partner families are more likely to have children living out-of-home in a given year. Higher AFDC/TANF benefits are associated with decreases in the probability that a family has a child living in a child welfare service setting, but increases in the probability that a family has a child living with relatives. Higher foster care payments are associated with increases in out-of-home placements. This research holds implications for predicting the ways in which changes in policies that affect family resources and structures may influence childrens living arrangements.

Berger, Lawrence Marc
Waldfogel, Jane
Maternity Leave and the Employment of New Mothers in the United States
Journal of Population Economics 17,2 (June 2004): 331-350.
Also: http://www.springerlink.com/content/0qu7lhrhngplmlpy/
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Springer
Keyword(s): Childbearing; Employment; Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA); Leave, Family or Maternity/Paternity; Maternal Employment; Modeling, Hazard;

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

We use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to examine the relationships between maternity leave coverage and U.S. women's post-birth leave taking and employment decisions from 1988 to 1996. We find that women who were employed before birth are working much more quickly post-birth than women who were not. We also find that, among mothers who were employed pre-birth, those in jobs that provided leave coverage are more likely to take a leave of up to 12 weeks, but return more quickly after 12 weeks. Our results suggest that maternity leave coverage is related to leave taking, as well as the length of time that a new mother stays home after a birth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Berger, Lawrence Marc
Waldfogel, Jane
Out-of-Home Placement of Children and Economic Factors: An Empirical Analysis
Review of Economics of the Household 2,4 (December 2004): 387-411.
Also: http://www.springerlink.com/content/r0267143242p8411/
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Springer
Keyword(s): Childhood Residence; Cohabitation; Event History; Family Structure; Foster Care; Household Composition; Maternal Employment; Parents, Single; Residence; Welfare;

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

In this paper, we use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) to estimate the effects of income, maternal employment, family structure, and public policies on several measures of children's living arrangements. We use both linear probability models and discrete-time event history models to explore the effects of these factors on: (1) the probability that a child is living out-of-home in a given year; (2) the probability that a child is removed from home in a given year, conditional on the child living at home in the previous year; (3) the probability that a child is removed from home for the first time; (4) the probability that a child is reunified with his/her biological parent(s) given that the child was living out-of-home in the previous year. We also analyze whether these estimates differ by types of out-of-home placements. Our results suggest that children from lower-income, single-mother, and mother-partner families are considerably more likely both to be living out-of-home and to be removed from home. A change in family structure also tends to place a child at higher risk of an out-of-home living arrangement, unless this transition functions to bring a child's father back into the household. Maternal work appears to increase the probability that a child lives at home. Additionally, once a removal has taken place, we do not find a relationship between income and the probability of a family reunification, but we do find that single-mother and mother-partner families are less likely to reunify. Finally, our analyses provide some evidence that welfare benefit levels are negatively related to out-of-home placements. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
...We use data from the Geographic Micro-Data and Child and Young Adult files of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). We begin with all children who were observed at any point from 1984 through 2000.

Brady-Smith, Christy
Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne
Waldfogel, Jane
Fauth, Rebecca
Work or Welfare? Assessing the Impacts of Recent Employment and Policy Changes on Very Young Children
Evaluation and Program Planning 24,4 (November 2001): 409-425
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Elsevier
Keyword(s): Child Care; Children; Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC); Education; Family Circumstances, Changes in; Maternal Employment; Mothers, Income; Welfare;

We explore the implications of the rapid influx of low-income mothers into the workforce and PRWORA work requirements during the middle to late 1990s for the well-being of young children. Our premise is that some families with young children will be better off, while others will be worse off than low-income cohorts from a decade ago. We focus on six policy provisions from the 1990s that are likely to influence the well-being of young, low-income children in the coming decades: (a) work requirements for mothers of young children; (b) education requirements for teenage mothers of young children; (c) child care subsidies; (d) child care regulations; (e) family leave; and (f) the Earned Income Tax Credit. For each of these provisions, we discuss the actual policy as well as the implementation (i.e. practice) of the policy at the state level. We then consider what policy-relevant research has to say about the possible impact of early maternal employment, income, and child care on young children, highlighting research on low-income families where possible. Much of the research we review is based on data collected prior to the rapid changes in the proportion of low-income mothers in the workforce and in state and federal requirements and programs that occurred in the mid-1990s. Thus, we conclude with speculations on how the current trends in workforce participation and welfare and other policies may impact young children in the coming decades.

Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne
Han, Wen-Jui
Waldfogel, Jane
Maternal Employment and Child Cognitive Outcomes in the First Three Years of Life: The NICHD Study of Early Child Care
Child Development 73,4 (July-August 2002): 1052-1072.
Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8624.00457/abstract
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Blackwell Publishing, Inc. => Wiley Online
Keyword(s): Child Care; Cognitive Development; Home Environment; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Maternal Employment; Parenting Skills;

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

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.

Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne
Magnuson, Katherine A.
Waldfogel, Jane
Long-Run Economic Effects of Early Childhood Programs on Adult Earnings
Issue Paper #12, Partnership for America's Economic Success (PAES), Pew Charitable Trust, Washington, DC, February 2009.
Also: http://www.partnershipforsuccess.org/uploads/20090504_LongRunAdultEarningsReport.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Pew Charitable Trust
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Children, Home Environment; Earnings; Economic Well-Being; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Labor Market Outcomes; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading);

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

Researchers and policymakers alike want to better understand the long-run effects of investments in children's well-being. Yet, only a few studies have examined how participants in early childhood interventions fare as adults. These studies suggest that early investments may have sizable payoffs for children's later success. In the absence of long-run data on children's outcomes, how can we determine the long-run monetary value of improvements in young children's well-being?

In this report we describe a way to link improvements in aspects of children's early health, achievement, and behavior to improved labor market outcomes when they become adults. We apply the same method to link improvements in the parenting children receive with their success in the labor market as adults. Our results suggest that investments in early childhood that improve these aspects of development will likely have important payoffs. However, the magnitude of these payoffs is strongly dependent on the extent to which early program effects are maintained over time.

We draw both substantive and methodological conclusions from this research. Both are important to understanding and quantifying the potential of early interventions to improve later outcomes. Our key substantive finding is that early improvements in child health, academic achievement, and behavior as well as improved parenting can yield sizable economic benefits for adult earnings. Our key methodological contribution is the application of a two-step method for linking improvements in early outcomes to long-run economic gains.

Ferber, Marianne A.
Waldfogel, Jane
Long-Term Consequences of Nontraditional Employment
Monthly Labor Review 121,5 (May 1998): 3-12.
Also: http://stats.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1998/05/art1abs.htm
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: U.S. Department of Labor
Keyword(s): Benefits; Earnings; Employment; Human Capital; Manpower Research; Occupational Choice; Occupational Investment; Training, On-the-Job; Wage Growth; Work Experience;

An article used 15 years of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to examine the possible effects of nontraditional employment and nontraditional work experience over time. It also examined the effects of changes in nontraditional employment on wage growth, to control for unobserved variation between those who are currently in, or ever have been in, nontraditional, as opposed to traditional, jobs. The results confirm that both men and women in nontraditional employment tend to have different earnings and benefits than those in traditional employment, whether or not other characteristics are controlled for.

Han, Wen-Jui
Miller, Daniel P.
Waldfogel, Jane
Parental Work Schedules and Adolescent Risky Behaviors
Developmental Psychology 46,5 (September 2010): 1245-1267.
Also: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/dev/46/5/1245/
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Keyword(s): Adolescent Sexual Activity; Alcohol Use; Child Self-Administered Supplement (CSAS); Delinquency/Gang Activity; Depression (see also CESD); Family Structure; Maternal Employment; Mothers, Education; Parent-Child Interaction; Risk-Taking; Sexual Activity; Shift Workers; Smoking (see Cigarette Use); Substance Use; Welfare; Work Hours;

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 children's 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.

Han, Wen-Jui
Waldfogel, Jane
Parental Work Schedules, Family Process, and Early Adolescents' Risky Behavior
Children and Youth Services Review 29, 9 (September 2007): 1249-1266.
Also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740907001181
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Elsevier
Keyword(s): Adolescent Behavior; Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Delinquency/Gang Activity; Depression (see also CESD); Home Environment; Parent Supervision/Monitoring; Parent-Child Relationship; Parents, Single; Risk-Taking; Shift Workers; Substance Use; Work Hours; Work, Atypical;

Using data on a large contemporary sample of 10 to 14 year olds from the NLSY-CS, this paper examines whether mothers' and fathers' work schedules are associated with parental monitoring and adolescent–parent closeness, and with adolescents' substance use and delinquency. Regression results for two-parent families indicate that parental nonstandard work schedules have mixed associations with family process, tending to improve monitoring but also having some deleterious effects on reported closeness. Regression results for single-mother families also show mixed effects. These results provide support for the hypothesis that nonstandard work schedules have offsetting effects on family process. Consistent with this hypothesis, in analyses for both two-parent and single-parent families, there are few significant associations between parents' work schedules and adolescents' risky behavior. These findings suggest that parental nonstandard work schedules have mainly neutral effects on early adolescents' risky behavior, because although they may reduce closeness, they also tend to improve monitoring. However, the results also raise a red flag about single mothers working rotating shifts, which we find is associated with an elevated likelihood that children have engaged in all three types of delinquent behavior.

Han, Wen-Jui
Waldfogel, Jane
Parents' Nonstandard Work Schedules and Adolescents' Socio-Emotional Outcomes
Presented: Philadelphia, PA, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, March-April 2005
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Adolescent Behavior; Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Behavior, Antisocial; Depression (see also CESD); Family Background; Home Environment; Maternal Employment; Sexual Behavior; Shift Workers; Substance Use; Work Hours;

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

The main focus of this paper is to assess whether the effects of parental employment on adolescents/ socio-emotional outcomes (i.e., depression, sexual behavior, substance use, and defiant behavior) differ by parental work schedules. This paper uses data from a large national sample of children in the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-Child Supplement (NLSY79-CS). The NLSY79-CS is well suited for this analysis because, in addition to collecting detailed information on family demographic background and home environment, it also contains information on various dimensions of parental work schedules (e.g., working at evenings, nights, or rotating shifts).

Han, Wen-Jui
Waldfogel, Jane
Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne
Long-Run Effects of Early Maternal Employment on Children's Achievement and Behavior
Presented: New York, NY, Population Association of America Meetings, March 1999
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Child Care; Children, Home Environment; Cognitive Ability; Fathers, Presence; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); 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 investigates the long-term impact of maternal employment and childcare utilization on children's cognitive and behavioral outcomes. Baydar and Brooks-Gunn (1991) used data from the 1986 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) to investigate the effects of continuity, intensity, and timing of maternal employment in the first year and of child-care arrangements in the first three years on children's cognitive and behavioral outcomes as assessed at ages 3 and 4. This paper revisits the same children, four years later, when they are 5/6 and 7/8 years of age, to see whether the effects that Baydar and Brooks-Gunn found at age 3 to 4 persist into the school-age years or whether those effects attenuate over time. As such, this paper will provide valuable new insights into the potential long-term effects of early maternal employment and early child care. Specifically, this paper will provide evidence on: 1) how the continuity, intensity, and timing of maternal employment in the first year of life affect children's development as assessed at age 5/6 and 7/8; 2) how maternal employment and child care arrangements in the first 3 years of life affect children's cognitive and socioemotional functioning at age 5/6 and 7/8 and what factors might mediate these effects; and 3) whether there are interactive influences of the types of early childcare arrangements and early maternal employment on later child outcomes.

Han, Wen-Jui
Waldfogel, Jane
Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne
Maternal Employment, Child Care, and Child Behavioral Outcomes: What Do We Know?
Presented: Atlanta, GA, Population Association of America Annual Meetings, May 2002
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Child Care; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Maternal Employment;

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

This paper investigates the impact of early maternal employment and child care on children's behavioral outcomes, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) and NICHD Study of Early Child Care (SECC). The NLSY is limited in that its behavioral outcomes are based on mothers' reports. Further, the NLSY has no information on the quality of care and only limited information on the quality of children's home environments. Therefore, we use a second dataset, the NICHD-SECC, which has, in addition to early maternal employment and mother-reported behavior problems, the quality of the home environment, the quality of the child care environment, and several additional measures of children's behavior and socioemotional adjustment. Thus, we will be able to use the NICHD-SECC dataset to determine whether the findings from the NLSY hold up when controls for home and child care quality are introduced and when other outcome variables are studied.

Han, Wen-Jui
Waldfogel, Jane
Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne
The Effects of Early Maternal Employment on Later Cognitive and Behavioral Outcomes
Journal of Marriage and Family 63,2 (May 2001): 336-354.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3654596
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: National Council on Family Relations
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Child Care; Hispanics; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Maternal Employment; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Poverty; Welfare;

This article investigates the long-term impact of early maternal employment on children's cognitive and behavioral outcomes. Non-Hispanic White and African American children aged 3 to 4 in the 1986 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth were followed longitudinally to see whether the effects that prior studies found at age 3 to 4 persist into the school-age years (ages 7 to 8) or whether those effects attenuate over time. The empirical results indicate that maternal employment in the 1st year of a child's life has significant negative effects on White children's cognitive outcomes. These effects persist to ages 7 or 8 for some children but not for others. We also found some negative effects of maternal employment in the 1st year on behavioral problems assessed at age 7 or 8, but again these effects are found only for white children.

Hill, Jennifer L.
Waldfogel, Jane
Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne
Han, Wen-Jui
Maternal Employment and Child Development: A Fresh Look Using Newer Methods
Developmental Psychology 41,6 (November 2005), 833-850.
Also: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/dev/41/6/833/
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Maternal Employment; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Propensity Scores;

The employment rate for mothers with young children has increased dramatically over the past 25 years. Estimating the effects of maternal employment on children's development is challenged by selection bias and the missing data endemic to most policy research. To address these issues, this study uses propensity score matching and multiple imputation. The authors compare outcomes across 4 maternal employment patterns: no work in first 3 years postbirth, work only after 1st year, part-time work in 1st year, and full-time work in 1st year. Our results demonstrate small but significant negative effects of maternal employment on children's cognitive outcomes for full-time employment in the 1st year postbirth as compared with employment postponed until after the 1st year. Multiple imputation yields noticeably different estimates as compared with a complete case approach for many measures. Differences between results from propensity score approaches and regression modeling are often minimal.

[Editor's Summary]
This study uses data from the NLSY longitudinal study to compare outcomes across four different patterns of maternal employment: no work for three years after a child's birth, work after one year post-birth, part time work in the child's first year, and full time work in the child's first year. Findings indicate small but significant negative effects of full time maternal employment during a child's first year in comparison with the postponement of employment for one year post-birth. The authors also discuss the problem of selection bias and missing data in estimating the effects of maternal employment.

Waldfogel, Jane
Child Welfare Research: How Adequate Are the Data?
Children and Youth Services Review 22,9-10 (2000): 705-741.
Also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740900001122
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Elsevier
Keyword(s): Adoption; Children, Well-Being; Data Analysis; Data Quality/Consistency; Exits; Foster Care; Kinship; Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID); Welfare;

This article discusses research on child welfare, focusing on efforts to improve data collection and outcome measurement for children at risk of abuse or neglect, placement in foster care or kinship care, or adoption. Three studies of outcomes of children in foster care illustrate trends in child welfare research: Maas and Engler's 1959 cross-sectional study, Fanshel and Shinn's 1978 longitudinal study, and the Wald, et al. 1988 study. Wald found that foster children may not be as disadvantaged as the two previous studies found, illustrating that more advanced study designs produced different results. Cross sectional datasets, however, have become more formalized through the development of the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS), which coordinates data collected from state level agencies. To formalize data collection on foster care, the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) required states to submit data. This sharply increased the amount of data available. More data is needed for researchers to be able to compare child welfare systems across states and over time, as well as to analyze factors associated with entry and re-entry into care, exits from care, and other variables. Kinship care and adoption are other areas that can benefit from enhanced databases. Child welfare researchers must have access to longitudinal data. One development is the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being (NSCAW), which provides descriptive data on children and families involved with the child welfare system, their experiences with the system, and their long- and short-term outcomes. The NSCAW follows children and their families for three years, collecting data from parents, children, caseworkers, caregivers, and teachers. NSCAW also collects data on foster care, kinship care, and adoption. AFCARS also has the potential for collecting longitudinal data; other surveys include the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics (PSID) and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). Outcome assessment can be summarized in three categories: safety, permanency, and well being. Of the three, permanency is the category for which the most data exists. Child and family well being is the category in the most need of a formalized system of identifying and tracking. The most pressing need in child welfare research is for a population-based sample of children at risk for abuse and neglect.

Waldfogel, Jane
Working Mothers Then and Now: A Cross-Cohort Analysis of the Effects of Maternity Leave on Women's Pay
In: Gender and Family in the Workplace. F.D. Blau and R.G. Ehrenberg, eds., New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1997: 92-126
Cohort(s): NLSY79, Young Women
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
Keyword(s): Gender Differences; Leave, Family or Maternity/Paternity; Maternal Employment; Wages, Women;

An examination of the disadvantages that women -- particularly young mothers -- face in today's workplace sets the stage for the debate...and Jane Waldfogel demonstrates that having children results in substantially lower wages for women. Adapted from publication publicity notice, copyright Russell Sage Foundation.

Waldfogel, Jane
The Effect Of Children On Women's Wages
American Sociological Review 62,2 (April 1997): 209-217.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2657300
Cohort(s): Young Women
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Keyword(s): Children; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Mothers, Income; Part-Time Work; Wage Effects; Wages, Women;

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

I use data from the 1968-1988 National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women to investigate the lower wages of mothers. In pooled cross-sectional models, difference models, and fixed-effects models, the negative effect of children on women's wages is not entirely explained by differences in labor market experience. I consider two alternative explanations for the residual penalties associated with having children: unobserved pay-relevant differences between mothers and non-mothers, which fixed-effects models show do not account for the child penalty; and part-time employment, which does account for some of the child penalty. However, even after controlling for part-time employment, a negative effect of children on women's pay remains.

Waldfogel, Jane
The Family Gap for Young Women in the United States and Britain: Can Maternity Leave Make a Difference?
Journal of Labor Economics 16,3 (July 1998): 505-545.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/209897
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Keyword(s): Britain, British; Cross-national Analysis; Family Studies; Fertility; Leave, Family or Maternity/Paternity; Marital Status; Maternal Employment; NCDS - National Child Development Study (British); Re-employment; Wage Effects; Wages, Young Women;

In the United States and Britain, there is a 'family gap' between the wages of mothers and other women. Differential returns to marital and parental status explain 40-50 percent of the gender gap. Another 30-40 percent is explained by women's lower levels of work experience and lower returns to experience. Taking advantage of 'quasi experiments' in job-protected maternity leave in the United States and Britain, this article finds that women who had leave coverage and returned to work after childbirth received a wage premium that offset the negative wage effects of children.

Waldfogel, Jane
Understanding the "Family Gap" in Pay for Women with Children
Journal of Economic Perspectives 12,1 (Winter 1998): 137-156.
Also: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.12.1.137
Cohort(s): NLSY79, Young Men, Young Women
Publisher: American Economic Association
Keyword(s): Britain, British; Cross-national Analysis; Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Family Studies; Gender Differences; Japan; Japanese; Job Tenure; Leave, Family or Maternity/Paternity; Maternal Employment; Parenthood; Wage Differentials; Wage Equations; Wage Gap; Wages, Women; Work Experience;

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

The narrowing of the gender gap in pay in the 1980s and 1990s, following decades in which the gap between the hourly earnings of women and men held constant, has been one of the most notable trends in the labor market in recent years. The decline in the gender gap has been all the more remarkable because it occurred while other types of wage inequality were increasing. These recent trends in the gender gap and in wage inequality have been extensively studied. However, less attention has been paid to the "family gap"-the wage differential between women with and without children. Although much of the evidence on links between family policies and women's pay is speculative, there is one policy--maternity leave--where we now have more persuasive evidence. Recent research in the United States, as well as comparative research on Britain and Japan, suggests that maternity leave coverage may raise women's pay. This research tells a clear story as to how such an effect might operate maternity leave coverage, by raising women's retention over the period of childbirth, raises women's wages by increasing their levels of work experience and job tenure and allowing them to maintain good job matches. Thus, maternity leave, along with other family policies, may be an effective remedy for the family gap in pay. (Adapted from the article by CHRR.)

Waldfogel, Jane
What Children Need
Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2006
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Keyword(s): Academic Development; Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Breastfeeding; Childbearing; Cognitive Development; Employment; Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA); Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Leave, Family or Maternity/Paternity; Maternal Employment; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading);

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

Waldfogel, Jane
Women Working for Less: Family Status and Women's Pay in the United States and United Kingdom
Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University, 1994
Cohort(s): NLSY79, Young Women
Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning
Keyword(s): Britain, British; Cross-national Analysis; Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Discrimination, Employer; Endogeneity; Family Studies; General Household Survey (GHS); Human Capital; Leave, Family or Maternity/Paternity; Modeling; NCDS - National Child Development Study (British); Variables, Instrumental; Wage Differentials; Wage Gap; Wages, Women; Work Experience;

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

This dissertation investigates the "family gap" (wage differentials among women related to family status) as well as the gender gap (wage inequality between men and women), using American and British data (the National Longitudinal Surveys of Young Women and of Youth and the Current Population Survey from the US, and the National Child Development Study and the General Household Survey from the UK). In both the US and UK, there is a large family gap. Among young women, mothers' wages lag twenty percentage points behind non-mothers', relative to men's. There are three alternative, but not mutually exclusive, hypotheses for this family gap. First, there might be no causal relationship between motherhood and lower wages and both might be due to unobserved heterogeneity. Second, the lower wages might be caused by the lower investment mothers make in human capital, such as education and experience. Third, some portion of the family gap might be due to the direct effects of family status. This dissertation investigates the effects of maternity leave, using an instrumental variables approach to control for the endogeneity of maternity leave usage, and finds a large positive effect of taking maternity leave and returning to the job. It also finds a large penalty to part-time work. Principal policy implications of this research are included.

Waldfogel, Jane
Working Mothers Then and Now: A Cross-Cohort Analysis of the Effects of Maternity Leave on Women's Pay
Presented: New Orleans, LA, Population Association of America, May 1996.
Also: Presented: Ithaca, NY, Conference on "Gender and Family Issues in the Workplace", Cornell University, April 1995
Cohort(s): NLSY79, Young Women
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Family Background; Income; Labor Market Demographics; Leave, Family or Maternity/Paternity; Maternal Employment; Motherhood; Mothers; Wages, Women; Wages, Young Women;

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

This paper uses two young cohorts from the NLS-YW and NLSY to investigate the importance of family status as a component of the gender gap and the potential impact of job protected maternity leave as a remedy for the pay penalties associated with motherhood. The results suggest that despite the narrowing of the gender gap over the 1980s, family status continues to be quite important in explaining the lower pay of working mothers. The results also suggest that maternity leave policies can have an important effect on women's pay. In both cohorts, employment continuity over the period of childbirth is associated with higher pay, because women who maintain employment continuity over childbirth have higher wages to start but also because returning to the prior employer after childbirth leads to gains in work experience and job tenure. In the NLSY, women who were covered by a formal maternity leave policy and returned to their original employers after their most recent birth have higher current pay, all else equal, than other working mothers. Although the higher pay of these women is explained in part by higher pre-birth wages, there are also positive returns to having maternity leave coverage and returning to a pre-birth employer. Coverage even if not used to maintain employment continuity is associated with higher pay, perhaps reflecting covered women's superior position in the labor market relative to women without coverage.

Waldfogel, Jane
Working Mothers Then and Now: A Cross-Cohort Analysis of the Effects of Maternity Leave on Women's Pay
Presented: Ithaca, NY, Cornell University, Conference on "Gender and Family Issues in the Workplace", April 1995
Cohort(s): NLSY79, Young Women
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Benefits; Family Studies; Leave, Family or Maternity/Paternity; Marital Status; Maternal Employment; Mothers, Income; Parental Marital Status; Wage Differentials; Women's Studies;

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

Waldfogel, Jane
Han, Wen-Jui
Parental Work Schedules, Home Life and Adolescents' Socio-Emotional Outcomes
Presented: Washington, DC, Annual Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) Research Conference, November 2005
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM)
Keyword(s): Adolescent Behavior; Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Behavior, Antisocial; Child Self-Administered Supplement (CSAS); Depression (see also CESD); Deviance; Home Environment; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Maternal Employment; Parent-Child Relationship; Shift Workers; Substance Use; Work Hours;

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

Abstract: While we enjoy the convenience of the 24-7 economy, shopping whenever we like, we often overlook the fact that a non-trivial proportion of the workforce (e.g., cashiers, waiters and waitresses, etc.) work at non-standard hours (hours that are not between 6 am and 6 pm) to provide this convenience for us. Yet, given that children's daily life experience revolves around parental work schedules, such work schedules may be associated with children's well-being. Currently, little theory or research is available about whether parental work schedules are associated with child outcomes, and whether the association is positive or negative. Only a few studies have considered the effects of non-standard work schedules on child outcomes. Two recent studies found that mothers' working nonstandard hours may have some adverse influence on their children's cognitive and behavioral outcomes (Han, 2005; Heymann, 2000). However, Han's study was limited to children under age 3, while Heymann's study was primarily qualitative. And both studies focused mainly on mothers' work schedules. The proposed paper will be the first to explore the extent to which mothers' and fathers' work schedules may be associated with adolescents' daily life experiences and how such experiences may be related to socio-emotional outcomes. The paper will focus on children age 13 and 14, using a contemporary national data set – the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-Child Supplement (NLSY-CS). We focus on 13 and 14 year olds because they are old enough to provide information themselves about their home life, time with parents, and so on. Some children this age also begin to engage in risky behaviors, such as delinquency and substance use. Taking advantage of the rich information in the NLSY-CS, this study will examine the associations between parental work schedules (e.g., working evenings, nights, or rotating shifts for both mothers and fathers) and measures of adolescents' perceptions about their daily life (i.e., time spent with parent(s), closeness with the parent(s), parental expectations and monitoring, and parental demands on the child) and home environment. We will examine the extent to which the associations between parental work schedules and adolescents' socio-emotional outcomes (i.e., depression, substance use, sexual behavior, and delinquent behavior), if there are any, may be accounted for by associations between parental work schedules and children's daily life experiences and home environment.

Waldfogel, Jane
Han, Wen-Jui
Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne
Early Maternal Employment and Child Outcomes: A Longitudinal Analysis of Children from the NLSY
Presented: Los Angeles, CA, Population Association of America Meetings, March 2000
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Breastfeeding; Employment, History; Ethnic Differences; Fathers, Presence; Hispanics; 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 investigates the long-term impact of early maternal employment on children's cognitive and behavioral outcomes, using data on 1872 children from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). We analyze non-Hispanic white, African American and Hispanic children separately and find that the effects of early maternal employment on later cognitive outcomes vary by race/ethnicity. For the non-Hispanic white children, employment in the first year of life has small but persistent adverse effects on cognitive outcomes even after controlling for poverty and other maternal and child characteristics, while employment in the second or third year of life has a small but persistent positive effect: having a mother who worked in the first year of life is associated with a 3-point lower score on the PPVT at ages 3 or 4, and a 2- to 3-point lower score on the PIAT Math and PIAT Reading Recognition at ages 5 or 6, and 7 or 8, while employment in the second or third years is associated with a 2- or 3-point higher score on most of these measures. These negative effects of first-year employment on cognitive outcomes, and positive effects of subsequent employment, are not found for the Africa-American children, while the results for the Hispanic children are mixed. The results for behavior problems also vary by race and ethnicity. For non-Hispanic white children, first-year maternal employment is associated with somewhat higher levels of internalizing problems at age 4 while second or third year employment is associated with lower levels of internalizing and externalizing problems at age 4, but all these effects fade out by age 7 or 8. For African-American children and Hispanic children, we found no significant effects of first, second, or third year employment.

Waldfogel, Jane
Han, Wen-Jui
Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne
Early Maternal Employment and Child Outcomes: A Longitudinal Analysis of Children from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth
Presented: Minneapolis, MN, Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, April 2001
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD)
Keyword(s): Maternal Employment;

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

Waldfogel, Jane
Han, Wen-Jui
Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne
The Effects of Early Maternal Employment on Child Cognitive Development
Demography 39,2 (May 2002): 369-392.
Also: http://www.springerlink.com/content/0644x86357l11872/
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Achievement; Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Breastfeeding; Children, Academic Development; Cognitive Development; Ethnic Differences; Hispanics; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Maternal Employment; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Racial Differences;

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

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.

Waldfogel, Jane
Higuchi, Yoshio
Abe, Masahiro
Family Leave Policies and Women's Retention after Childbirth: Evidence from the United States, Britain, and Japan
Journal of Population Economics 12,4 (November 1999): 523-545.
Also: http://www.springerlink.com/content/f3f0bqjxqp31eebq/
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Springer
Keyword(s): Britain, British; Cross-national Analysis; Japan; Japanese; Leave, Family or Maternity/Paternity; Maternal Employment; NCDS - National Child Development Study (British);

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

This paper uses labour force survey data to examine the employment rates and employment decisions of women with young children in the United States, Britain and Japan. Our results confrm that young children have a very strong negative effect on women's employment; this effect is most pronounced in Britain. We then take advantage of panel data to investigate the effects of family leave coverage on women's job retention after childbirth. We find that family leave coverage increases the likelihood that a woman will return to her employer after childbirth in all three countries, with a particularly marked effect in Japan. This result suggests that the recent expansions in family leave coverage in the sample countries are likely to lead to increased employment of women after childbirth.

Waldfogel, Jane
Mayer, Susan E.
Gender Differences in the Low-Wage Labor Market
In: Finding Jobs: Work and Welfare Reform. D.E. Card and R.M. Blank, eds. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 2000
Cohort(s): NLSY79, Young Men, Young Women
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
Keyword(s): Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Educational Attainment; Family Size; Gender; Gender Differences; Human Capital; Job Tenure; Marital Status; Part-Time Work; Wage Effects; Wage Levels; Wages; Work Experience;

...Thus, this chapter differs from previous research in that we estimate and decompose changes in the gender gap in pay for workers with different levels of education. Also in contrast to prior research, we include detailed controls for marital status and number of children, and we include both full-time and part-time workers. In common with prior research, we use both cross-sectional and panel data, so that we can take actual work experience and job tenure into account as well as the usual controls for education and other human capital and demographic variables that affect wages.

Waldfogel, Jane
Mayer, Susan E.
Male-Female Differences in the Low-Wage Labor Market
JCPR Working Paper 70, Joint Center for Poverty Research, February 1999.
Also: http://ideas.repec.org/p/har/wpaper/9904.html
Cohort(s): NLSY79, Young Men, Young Women
Publisher: Joint Center for Poverty Research
Keyword(s): Economic Well-Being; Education; Fertility; Gender Differences; Wage Gap; Wages, Men; Wages, Women;

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

This paper was also presented in Washington DC: JCPR Conference, Labor Market and Less-Skilled Workers, November 1998. In recent years, women have made considerable gains relative to men in the labor market. Most notably, the gender gap in hourly wages has narrowed substantially. In this paper we divide workers into three skill groups on the basis of education, and analyze how the hourly earnings of women in each group have progressed relative to those of comparably educated men, the reasons for those gains, and their implications for women's economic well-being.