Children of working mothers are significantly more likely to experience health problems, including asthma and accidents, than children of mothers who don’t work, according to new research from North Carolina State University.
When a mother works, the study found, it leads to a 200 percent increase in the child’s risk of having each of three different adverse health events: overnight hospitalizations, asthma episodes, and injuries or poisonings.
The study examined 20 years’ worth of data collected by the Centers for Disease Control’s National Health Interview Survey from 1985 to 2004, covering approximately 89,000 children.
“I don’t think anyone should make sweeping value judgments based on a mother’s decision to work or not work,” says Dr. Melinda Morrill, author of the study. “But, it is important that we are aware of the costs and benefits associated with a mother’s decision to work.”
Previous studies have shown that, on average, children have better health outcomes when the mother works. Those findings have been attributed to factors such as increased income, availability of health insurance and an increase in the mother’s self-esteem. However, Morrill found that was not the case. Morrill used advanced statistical techniques to focus specifically on the causal relationship between mothers working and children’s health.
Morrill’s approach accounts for a number of confounding factors, such as how a child’s health affects the mother’s ability to work outside the home. For example, if a child is very sick, the mother is more likely to choose to stay home and tend to the child’s needs.