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Time Off After Childbirth and Mothers’ Risk of Depression, Parenting Stress, and Parenting Practices
Abstract
There has been increased interest in U.S. parental leave policies, but relatively few studies have focused on how such policies may influence mothers’ well-being and parenting. This study addresses this gap by using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine factors that predict the amount of time mothers take off work following childbirth and whether length of time off is associated with mothers’ risk of depression, parenting stress, and parenting practices. Results suggest that the majority of disadvantaged mothers take 3 months or less off from work after childbirth. Results also suggest that taking a month or less off work is associated with increased parenting stress, an increased risk of depression, and an increased likelihood of spanking relative to mothers who took more time off. Results also suggest that longer periods of time off are associated with more frequent engagement in developmental activities with the child.
... Twenty-three articles were included to explore the association between maternity leave characteristics and postpartum depression. Studies were conducted in the US (n = 18) Markowitz 2005, 2008;Clark et al. 1997;Dagher et al. 2014;Dundon et al. 2021;Feldman et al. 2004;Gjerdingen et al. 1991;Hwang et al. 2021;Hyde et al. 1995;Jou et al. 2018;Klein et al. 1998;Kornfeind and Sipsma 2018;Mandal 2018;Petts 2018;Richman et al. 1991;Shumbusho et al. 2020;Stack et al. 2018Stack et al. , 2019, Canada (n = 2) (des Rivières-Pigeon et al. 2001;Baker and Milligan 2008), Australia (n = 1) (Bilgrami et al. 2020), and Denmark (n = 1) (Beuchert et al. 2016), while the other was a multi-country study taking place in eight European countries (Avendano et al. 2015). Eleven studies used a cross-sectional design Markowitz 2005, 2008;Dundon et al. 2021;Feldman et al. 2004;Hwang et al. 2021;Kornfeind and Sipsma 2018;Mandal 2018;Shumbusho et al. 2020;Stack et al. 2018Stack et al. , 2019, eight were longitudinal studies (Clark et al. 1997;Dagher et al. 2014; des Rivières-Pigeon et al. ...
... 2001; Gjerdingen et al. 1991;Hyde et al. 1995;Jou et al. 2018;Klein et al. 1998;Petts 2018;Richman et al. 1991), and four followed a quasi-experimental design (differencein-difference approach) (Avendano et al. 2015;Baker and Milligan 2008;Beuchert et al. 2016;Bilgrami et al. 2020). The tools used to assess depression varied across studies. ...
... In twelve studies, more than half had education beyond high school (Beuchert et al. 2016;Bilgrami et al. 2020;Clark et al. 1997;des Rivières-Pigeon et al. 2001;Dundon et al. 2021;Feldman et al. 2004;Hwang et al. 2021;Hyde et al. 1995;Jou et al. 2018;Klein et al. 1998;Kornfeind and Sipsma 2018;Mandal 2018). Between 64 and 99% of mothers were married or had a partner in fifteen studies (Avendano et al. 2015;Beuchert et al. 2016;Bilgrami et al. 2020;Chatterji and Markowitz 2005;Dagher et al. 2014;des Rivières-Pigeon et al. 2001;Dundon et al. 2021;Hyde et al. 1995;Jou et al. 2018;Klein et al. 1998;Kornfeind and Sipsma 2018;Mandal 2018;Petts 2018;Stack et al. 2018Stack et al. , 2019, and this characteristic was an inclusion criterion in four (Feldman et al. 2004;Gjerdingen and Chaloner 1994;Clark et al. 1997;Hwang et al. 2021), while the other studies did not provide information about this. Between 10 and 51% were first-time mothers (Clark et al. 1997;Dagher et al. 2014;des Rivières-Pigeon et al. 2001;Dundon et al. 2021;Hyde et al. 1995;Klein et al. 1998;Kornfeind and Sipsma 2018), and this was an inclusion criterion in two studies (Feldman et al. 2004;Gjerdingen et al. 1991). ...
Purpose
Working mothers are at greater risk for postpartum depression. Maternity leave characteristics, including length, wage replacement and employment protection, could have relevant implications for mothers’ mental health. We propose to explore whether there is an association between maternity leave characteristics and postpartum depression.
Methods
We conducted a systematic review searching for randomized controlled trials, quasi-experimental, cohort or cross-sectional studies on five databases using search terms including maternity and parental leave and depression, as well as references in relevant articles. We identified 500 articles and included 23 of those. We used the EPHPP Quality Assessment Tool for Quantitative Studies to assess the quality of the studies.
Results
Paid and longer maternity leaves tend to be associated with a reduction of postpartum depression symptoms in high-income countries. No studies explored the association between employment protection and postpartum depression. The quality of studies ranged from strong to weak, mostly influenced by study design.
Conclusion
More restrictive maternity leave policies tend to be associated with higher rates of postpartum depression, although more research needs to be conducted in the Global South.
... 17 studies were based on a quasi-experimental design, [17][18][19][20][21][22][23]26,27,29,31,36,37,40,44,48,61 including six uncontrolled before-after studies, [19][20][21]36,37,61 six controlled beforeafter studies, 18,22,23,31,40,44 two cohort studies, 27,29 and three cross-sectional studies. 17,26,48 28 studies were observational, 24,25,28,30,[32][33][34][35]38,39,[41][42][43][45][46][47][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60] including 15 cohort studies 25,30,34,35,39,41,42,45,47,[49][50][51]53,56,60 and 13 cross-sectional studies. 24,28,32,33,38,43,46,52,54,55,[57][58][59] 38 studies were of medium or high quality. ...
... 17 studies were based on a quasi-experimental design, [17][18][19][20][21][22][23]26,27,29,31,36,37,40,44,48,61 including six uncontrolled before-after studies, [19][20][21]36,37,61 six controlled beforeafter studies, 18,22,23,31,40,44 two cohort studies, 27,29 and three cross-sectional studies. 17,26,48 28 studies were observational, 24,25,28,30,[32][33][34][35]38,39,[41][42][43][45][46][47][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60] including 15 cohort studies 25,30,34,35,39,41,42,45,47,[49][50][51]53,56,60 and 13 cross-sectional studies. 24,28,32,33,38,43,46,52,54,55,[57][58][59] 38 studies were of medium or high quality. ...
... 24,28,32,33,38,43,46,52,54,55,[57][58][59] 38 studies were of medium or high quality. The risk of bias assessment is summarised in the appendix (pp [50][51][52][53][54]. ...
Mental health disorders during the post-partum period are a common morbidity, but parental leave might help alleviate symptoms by preventing or reducing stress. We aim to summarise available evidence on the effect of different types of parental leave on mental health outcomes among parents. For this systematic review, we searched Ovid MEDLINE, Web of Science, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and Scopus from database inception to Aug 29, 2022, for peer-reviewed, quantitative studies written in English. We included studies if the exposure was postnatal parental leave; a relevant comparison group was present (eg, paid vs unpaid leave); and if indicators related to general mental health, including depression, anxiety, stress, and suicide, for either parent were evaluated or recorded at any time after childbirth. The Review is registered with PROSPERO (registration number CRD42021227499). Of the 3441 records screened, 45 studies were narratively synthesised. Studies were done in high-income countries, and they examined generosity by any parental leave (n=5), benefit amount (n=13), and leave duration (n=31). 38 studies were of medium or high quality. Improved mental health was generally observed among women (referred to as mothers in this Review) with more generous parental leave policies (ie, leave duration and paid vs unpaid leave). For example, increased duration of leave was generally associated with reduced risk of poor maternal mental health, including depressive symptoms, psychological distress and burnout, and lower mental health-care uptake. However, the association between fathers’ leave and paternal mental health outcomes was less conclusive as was the indirect effect of parental leave use on partners’ mental health.
... There is a need for further studies of the association between leave characteristics and depression among more diverse populations, especially given demonstrated disparities in access to leave by income and race (Hawkins, 2020;Petts, 2018). Additionally, many existing studies of leave duration do not distinguish between paid and unpaid leave; others rely on data from several decades ago and may not be generalizable to states where leave policies have since evolved. ...
... However, there were few people in our sample who had taken 6 or more months of leave (n = 71) at the time of interview, as PRAMS only samples women up to 6 months postpartum. Our lack of association with leave duration may reflect the fact that we had more recent data than prior studies or that we controlled for variables likely to be strong confounders but had not been fully accounted for in some prior studies (Petts, 2018). Importantly, our study controlled for whether the leave was paid in addition to the duration of leave. ...
Introduction
The United States is the only high-income country without a comprehensive national maternity leave policy guaranteeing paid, job-projected leave. The current study examined associations between maternity leave characteristics (duration of leave, payment status of leave) and postpartum depressive symptoms.
Methods
This study used a sample of 3,515 postpartum women from the New York City and New York State Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) from 2016 to 2019. We used logistic regression to examine the association of leave duration and payment status with self-reported postpartum depressive symptoms between 2 and 6 months postpartum.
Results
Compared to having at least some paid leave, having unpaid leave was associated with an increased odds of postpartum depressive symptoms, adjusting for leave duration and selected covariates (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 1.41, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.04–1.93). There was no significant difference in postpartum depressive symptoms between those with partially and those with fully paid leave. In contrast to prior literature, leave duration was not significantly associated with postpartum depressive symptoms (aOR = 0.99, 95% CI: 0.97–1.02 for each additional week of leave).
Discussion
This study suggests that unpaid leave is associated with increased risk of postpartum depression, which can have long-term health effects for both mothers and children. Future studies can help to identify which communities could most benefit from paid leave and help to inform paid leave policies.
... This finding may be especially noteworthy given that responsivity was beneficial for children with more difficult temperament traits in a racially and ethnically diverse sample of participants from different family compositions. The original FFCW study oversampled unmarried parents from diverse backgrounds who often experience co-occurring stressors like high parenting stress and depression (Petts, 2018). Thus, results from this study underscore the importance of positive parenting practices and the need to invest in efforts to support positive parenting for children from diverse family compositions and backgrounds, particularly children with more difficult temperament traits. ...
Positive parenting behaviors and children’s internalizing problems (Int. Probs) are bidirectionally associated during late childhood and early adolescence. These bidirectional associations likely emerge earlier and may be stronger when children are prone to reactive negative emotions, making parents’ support especially critical in children’s regulation of negative emotions. The purpose of this study was to test (a) bidirectional associations between parents’ positive responsivity and children’s internalizing problems from very early through middle childhood and (b) the moderating role of children’s negative emotionality in these bidirectional associations (N = 4,898). Small bidirectional associations between internalizing problems and responsivity were found from ages 3 to 5. Internalizing problems at 3 years were negatively associated with responsive parenting at 5 years. Parent responsivity at 3 and 5 years was negatively associated with later internalizing problems at ages 5 and 9 years, respectively. Negative emotionality only moderated the parent-driven association between responsivity at 3 years and internalizing problems at 5 years, with higher responsivity associated with lower internalizing problems only for children with moderate to high negative emotionality. Parents’ positive responsivity to children’s behavior and children’s internalizing problems were only bidirectionally associated in early childhood (ages 3–5). Across ages 3–5 and 5–9, greater parent responsivity to children’s behavior was associated with fewer internalizing problems and may be especially beneficial for children with higher negative emotionality. Results further suggest that young children experiencing internalizing problems may be more likely to receive less responsive parenting later, regardless of children’s negative emotionality.
... Postpartum women often report physical and psychological health problems including sleep deprivation, body pains, depression, and anxiety (Falletta et al., 2020;Johansson et al., 2020). These physical health and emotional challenges may linger for some mothers when they return to work, especially when the maternity leave duration is short (Petts, 2018). Early return to work after childbirth may also deprive mothers of the opportunity to spend time with their infants and adversely affect the continuation of breastfeeding Dutheil et al., 2021;Weber et al., 2011). ...
This study explored the lived experiences of employed mothers returning to work after maternity leave in the Ghanaian context. Using a qualitative research approach, in-depth interviews were conducted with 21 employed postpartum mothers who had returned to work within one year after birth. Using reflexive thematic analysis, four themes were generated that speak to mothers’ experiences of returning to work after maternity leave: setting the stage for work return, embracing the emotions of work return, re-adapting to the workplace, and impact on personal and family health. Mothers’ return to work after maternity leave was preceded by extensive physical and psychological preparations including childcare arrangements that enhanced their readiness for paid work. Despite such preparations, most mothers experienced their return to work as emotionally challenging marked by feelings of sadness, guilt, and frustration. Childbirth and return to work also negatively impacted mothers’ work performance as well as their personal and family wellbeing. Moreover, combining the increased responsibilities associated with childbirth and work demands emerged as a major source of stress for postpartum mothers. These findings underscore the need for policies, organisational practices, and comprehensive support structures that facilitate mothers’ return to work after maternity leave.
... Research shows that higher household income is associated with lower levels of externalizing and internalizing behaviors in children across low-, middle-, and high-income countries (Lansford et al., 2019). These links are likely due at least in part to well-documented associations between parent's financial stress and mental health symptoms, like depression, that pose challenges to adaptive parenting behaviors (e.g., Petts, 2018). Immigration status may also affect associations between financial stress and child behavior outcomes. ...
Parent characteristics at childbirth influence children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors, which are critical determinants of broader socioemotional outcomes. The current study employed a longitudinal, person-centered, latent class analytic (LCA) approach to examine subgroup differences among key parent characteristics and associations with children’s distal internalizing and externalizing behavior outcomes. The study sample (n = 2460) was drawn from baseline and Year 9 waves of the nationally representative Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Project. LCA results supported a 3-class solution to the data, comprising a married, well-educated, wealthy, English-speaking, U.S.-born subgroup; an unmarried, English-speaking, U.S.-born subgroup with low SES and educational attainment levels; and an immigrant, Spanish-preferred, low-SES, low educational attainment subgroup with moderate marriage probability. Children of the wealthy subgroup demonstrated the lowest internalizing and externalizing behavior scores, followed by the low-SES, Spanish-preferred subgroup. Children of the low-SES, English-speaking subgroup had the highest internalizing and externalizing scores. Results suggest a protective effect for children of the immigrant, Spanish-preferred subgroup despite low parental SES and educational attainment levels.
... This nding may be especially noteworthy given that responsivity was bene cial for children with more di cult temperament traits in a racially and ethnically diverse sample of participants from different family compositions. The original FFCW study oversampled unmarried parents from diverse backgrounds who often experience co-occurring stressors like high parenting stress and depression (Petts, 2018). While we found small effects of race on internalizing problems and responsivity, the effects of race on both variables were inconsistent across ages and would need further study to draw meaningful interpretations. ...
Objective:
Positive parenting behaviors and children’s internalizing problems are bidirectionally associated during late childhood and early adolescence. These bidirectional associations likely emerge earlier and may be stronger when the child is prone to reactive negative emotions, making parents’ support especially critical in children’s regulation of negative emotions. The purpose of this study was to test (a) bidirectional associations between parents’ positive responses to children’s behaviors and children’s internalizing problems from very early to middle childhood, and (b) the moderating role of children’s negative emotionality in these bidirectional associations (N = 4,898).
Results:
Child-driven associations between internalizing problems and later responsive parenting were negatively associated from 3 to 5 years old and not associated from 5 to 9 years old. Parent-driven associations of responsivity at 3 and 5 years old were negatively associated with later internalizing problems at ages 5 and 9 years old respectively. Negative emotionality only moderated the parent-driven association between responsivity at 3 years old and internalizing problems at 5 years old, with higher responsivity being negatively associated with internalizing problems for children having more negative emotionality.
Conclusions:
Parents’ responsivity to child behavior in early and middle childhood tends to be associated with fewer internalizing problems. Parents’ positive response to very young children’s behaviors may be especially beneficial for children with higher negative emotionality. These results also support those very young children experiencing internalizing problems may be more likely to receive less responsive parenting later, regardless of children’s negative emotionality.
... Many mothers who cannot afford the unpaid time off provided by the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) promptly return to work (often without time for recuperation) in fear that requesting additional time off (regardless of being paid or unpaid) will compromise their job security (Kornfeind & Sipsma, 2018). Previous research has largely focused on the impact of early maternal employment on children, but there remains a gap in the literature on the effects of placing children in formal childcare for the mothers themselves (Petts, 2018). ...
The current study examines the association between the mother-caregiver relationship and the psychological well-being of 533 mothers who transitioned their children to a non-familial licensed childcare center. Maternal well-being, mother-caregiver relationship quality, and maternal parenting stress were assessed. Hierarchical linear regressions were conducted to examine the associations between independent variables (i.e., maternal demographic data, parenting stress, and maternal reports of supportive caregiver relationship) and maternal well-being as a dependent variable. The results show that together, the independent variables account for 31% of variation in maternal well-being. Findings suggest that a supportive caregiver relationship is a significant factor in contributing to maternal well-being. There is a call to recognize mothers transitioning their children to non-familial care as a special population for consideration by teachers, caregivers, and infant/child mental health professionals working in childcare settings. The current research bolsters discussion on mother-caregiver relationships to focus on how professionals in childcare settings can best support mothers in this unique transition to non-familial care for their children.
... Research published from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing (FFCW) study, which oversampled unmarried parents, found these parents have fewer social supports and higher rates of parental depression (Wilmot & Dauner, 2017). Mothers in the FFCW sample who had shorter maternity leave have been found to have higher rates of depression and parenting stress; these mothers were also more likely to use harsh parenting (Petts, 2018). Other research published using the FFCW data set found that parental depression was associated with parents' negative perceptions of cooperative coparenting in a reciprocal fashion (Williams, 2018). ...
The bidirectional associations between maternal depression and child psychological functioning are generally well-established. Paternal depression may also share some bidirectional associations with child psychological functioning, but there is limited research in this area. It is unclear how or when one family member’s anxiety or depression might affect another family member’s mental health. The present study tested the bidirectional associations between maternal depression, paternal depression, and children’s internalizing problems of anxiety and depression from early childhood into mid-adolescence. The present study also included unmarried parents, who are often underrepresented in research. Secondary analyses were performed using a subset of data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing (FFCW) study, beginning when children were 3-years-old and ending when children were 15-years-old. Families (N = 4,873) were from racially and economically diverse backgrounds—nearly half of the mothers were non-Hispanic Black and 65% of mothers had a high school degree or further education. We found evidence of bidirectional associations between maternal depression and child internalizing problems across early childhood and into adolescence. We found no bidirectional associations between paternal and maternal depression or between paternal depression and children’s internalizing problems. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
... Across the implementation of FMLA (1987FMLA ( -1994, the length of leave for both mothers and fathers increased, but the greatest increase was for collegeeducated, married mothers and college-educated fathers (Han et al. 2009). More recent evidence indicates racial and educational differences in the length of maternity and paternity leave, with more highly educated fathers, mothers who did not complete high school, and Black mothers taking the longest leaves (Petts 2018;. ...
Parental leave has been linked to numerous positive child and family outcomes, yet little is known about which new mothers and fathers take longer parental leaves. Using structural equation modeling, we examined the financial, demographic, identity-relevant, and job characteristics that predict the duration of maternity and paternity leave in a community sample of 130 U.S. dual-earner couples who were followed across their transition to parenthood in 2008–2009. The findings show that financial characteristics, especially paid leave, are important for leave duration for both parents. In addition, identity-relevant and demographic characteristics mattered to length of paternity leave, whereas job characteristics were relevant to length of maternity leave. For fathers, longer leaves were associated with a greater proportion of paid leave, older paternal age, having a less planned pregnancy, and lower endorsement of maternal essentialism. For mothers, longer leaves were associated with a greater proportion of paid leave, higher household income, and lower job satisfaction. Together, these predictors explained 21% of the variance in maternity leave duration and 30% of the variance in paternity leave duration. In order for all U.S. parents, including fathers and low-income mothers, to reap the benefits of parental leave, financially incentivized leave would be most beneficial.
El artículo identificó dimensiones de sentido del ámbito denomina-do prácticas parentales. Para ello se llevó a cabo una revisión siste-mática, presentada por medio del estándar Prisma, que arrojó 66 características identificadas en 62 artículos examinados desde 2017 a 2022. Dichas características fueron precodificadas encontrando 18 categorías, transformadas en 14 ejes, correspondientes con tres pro-piedades generales de las prácticas sociales: poder, sanción e inter-cambio. Esto configuró un sistema de coordenadas que fue denomi-nado «espacio categorial», y que posteriormente fue sometido a evaluación por jueces expertos, quienes conceptuaron a favor de su pertinencia y relevancia. Los resultados se discuten en términos del aporte del espacio presentado para abordar el posicionamiento parental como una forma alternativa de emprender la investigación y la intervención futura en el área.
Palabras clave Prácticas parentales; crianza; relaciones familiares; Prisma. Tesauro Tesauro de Ciencias Sociales de la Unesco. El espacio categorial de las prácticas parentales: una revisión sistemática.
(analítico)El artículo identificó dimensiones de sentido del ámbito denominado prácticas parentales. Para ello se llevó a cabo una revisión sistemática, presentada por medio del estándar Prisma, que arrojó 66 características identificadas en 62 artículos examinados desde 2017 a 2022. Dichas características fueron precodificadas encontrando 18 categorías, transformadas en 14 ejes, correspondientes con tres propiedades generales de las prácticas sociales: poder, sanción e intercambio. Esto configuró un sistema de coordenadas que fue denominado «espacio categorial», y que posteriormente fue sometido a evaluación por jueces expertos, quienes conceptuaron a favor de su pertinencia y relevancia. Los resultados se discuten en términos del aporte del espacio presentado para abordar el posicionamiento parental como una forma alternativa de emprender la investigación y la intervención futura en el área. Palabras clave: Prácticas parentales; crianza; relaciones familiares; Prisma.
Background:
The stress of a mother's depression may increasingly tax psychobiological systems that help children with self-regulation, increasing children's allostatic load over time. Some evidence supports children exposed to maternal depression tend to have shorter telomeres and tend to have more somatic and psychological problems. Children having one or more A1 alleles of dopamine receptor 2 (DRD2, rs1800497), tend to have greater sensitivity to maternal depression and could experience more adverse child outcomes that contribute to greater allostatic load.
Methods:
Using the Future Families and Child Wellbeing dataset, secondary-data analyses were used to test the effect of repeated exposure to maternal depression during early childhood on children's telomere length during middle childhood moderated by children's DRD2 genotype (N = 2884).
Results:
Greater maternal depression was not significantly associated with shorter child telomere length and this association was not moderated by DRD2 genotypes while controlling for factors associated with child telomere length.
Implications:
The effect of maternal depression on children's TL may not be significant in populations from diverse racial-ethnic and family backgrounds during middle childhood. These findings could help further our current understanding psychobiological systems affected by maternal depression that result in adverse child outcomes.
Limitations:
Even though this study used a relatively large and diverse sample, replication of DRD2 moderation in even larger samples is an important next step.
Objective
The objective of this research was to investigate contemporary Chinese college students' perceptions of the “good mother.”
Background
Increased lifestyle and self-fulfillment choices have recently become available for college-age students in China. However, there is government, societal, and family pressure for women to be married, ideally by 25 years of age, and to bear children as a patriotic and socially stabilizing duty.
Method
A qualitative study using thematic analysis to code data from semistructured interviews with 20 male and female college students.
Results
Five attributes of a good mother were identified: “is a guide,” “is loving,” “communicates with her child as with a friend,” “is not overcontrolling,” and “balances paid work and time with her child.”
Conclusion
This study contributes to ongoing research across cultures and societies, which aims to understand what young adults believe to be a “good mother” and how this may affect their future parenting practices. Within the Chinese context, perceptions of a “good mother” include traditional echoes—for example, mother as primary caregiver—mixed with contemporary ideas—for example, pursuing the right to seek personal fulfillment and financial autonomy and a move away from a top-down authoritarian style of parenting. Gendered perceptions of physical punishment, childrearing anxiety, and parental sacrifice were identified.
Implications
Future policymakers should provide greater social and workplace options and implement support services to alleviate the anxiety women experience in their dual aspirations to succeed in paid work and to be good mothers. Educating men regarding their contribution to caregiving and the fostering of family harmony should also be prioritized.
Although management research on work-life flexibility policies has occurred for over 40 years, it is underdeveloped with inconsistent results. We argue that this is due to theorizing that—but not measuring whether—policy use increases boundary control; a fragmented literature examining a range of policies (either individually or bundled) without comprehensive integration; and an under-examination of policy implementation effectiveness. Drawing on boundary theory, we inductively review 338 studies to organize the work–life flexibility policy literature around a boundary control and implementation framework. Our framework derives a taxonomy of types of boundary control, identifies implementation stages, considers the importance of policy bundling, and incorporates multi-level (individual, group, organizational, societal) and multi-domain (family, work) dynamics. Our review shows that the current literature often assesses the availability of single policies and individual outcomes; but under-assesses boundary control, extent of use, bundling, implementation, and multi-level outcomes. Our results provide a springboard for future research and practice by offering new insights for understanding work–life flexibility policies, encouraging scholars to: (1) recognize the crucial role of different types of employee boundary control (spatial, size, temporal, permeability, continuity) as an inherent element of policy experiences that must be measured rather than merely assumed; (2) examine how work–life flexibility policy implementation involves four implementation stages—availability, access experiences (including enablers and barriers), use, and outcomes—with multiple stakeholders (e.g., individual employees, supervisors, coworkers, family) and contextual factors (i.e., societal forces); and (3) innovate ways to examine emergent policy issues such as equality, home implementation, and hybrid forms.
Past and current policies have led to the creation and sustainment of systemic racism. The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) is a key contributor to sustaining health disparities for working Black women in the USA. Black women have a longstanding history of disadvantage and the current family leave policies make this demographic more vulnerable to economic hardship and eventually disparate health outcomes. Using data from the Family and Medical Leave Act in 2012 – Employee Survey (N = 1266), this study conducts logistic regression analyses to examine if this policy disparately benefits white men and white women compared to women of color. Respondents were categorized into leave takers (those who took family and medical leave as needed), leave needers (those who had an unmet need for leave), and employed only (those who neither needed nor took leave). As hypothesized, Black working women (vs. White working men) have the highest odds of having an unmet need for taking a leave followed by Latina women. In addition, Black working women (vs. White working men) had the highest odds of difficulty in making ends meet when they did take leave. The authors also conduct a policy analysis of the FMLA through a critical race theory (CRT) lens to offer policy recommendations, which deconstruct the role structural racism plays in the structure and implementation of the FMLA.
In this chapter, we focus on the work-family interface using an ecological systems framework and three other related theories: boundary theory, role theory, and gender theory. We then introduce the literature on the work-family interface and focus our attention on the experiences of work-to-family and family-to-work conflict, work-to-family and family-to-work spillover, work-to-family and family-to-work crossover, workplace flexibility, parental leave policies, and day-care arrangements. We further recognize that cultural characteristics imbedded in different regions and countries moderate dimensions of the work-family interface. We have emphasized research in multiple countries and regions where such cross-cultural research was available.
Parental leave has important benefits for women, men, and families. This study examines how individual, family, and workplace factors are associated with the length of parental leaves taken by workers in diverse jobs and work contexts, but with the same employer, focusing on gender differences in the factors associated with longer parental leaves. The data are the result of a collaboration between university researchers and a municipal employer. We find that gender was a major driver of the duration of parental leaves for these workers, who must use their accumulated paid time off or take unpaid leave for parental leave; women’s leaves were almost three times longer than men’s. We also find gender differences in the factors associated with leave duration. For women, socioeconomic status seemed to matter most, while for men, family and workplace context influenced leave length. The results indicate the centrality of financial considerations in parents’ leave decisions, reinforcing the importance of having a dedicated paid parental leave policy. We argue that paid parental leaves would help reduce disparities between and within genders at work and in the family.
This important 1999 volume examines the effects of the mother's employment on family life and children's well-being. It starts with a thorough review of previous research on this topic and then reports the results of a study designed to answer the key questions that emerge. The study focuses on 448 families, with an elementary school child, living in an industrialized city in the Midwest. They include both one-parent and two-parent families, African Americans and Whites, and a broad range of economic circumstances. Extensive data have been obtained from mothers, fathers, children, teachers, classroom peers, and school records. The analysis reported reveals how the mother's employment status affects the father's role, the mother's sense of well-being, and childrearing patterns and how these, in turn, affect the child. The book provides an intimate picture of urban life and how families cope with mothers' employment.
This study examines the association of leave duration with depressive symptoms, mental health, physical health, and maternal symptoms in the first postpartum year, using a prospective cohort design. Eligible employed women, eighteen years or older, were interviewed in person at three Minnesota hospitals while hospitalized for childbirth in 2001. Telephone interviews were conducted at six weeks (N=716), twelve weeks (N=661), six months (N=625), and twelve months (N=575) after delivery. Depressive symptoms (Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale), mental and physical health (SF-12 Health Survey), and maternal childbirth-related symptoms were measured at each time period. Two-stage least squares analysis showed that the relationship between leave duration and postpartum depressive symptoms is U-shaped, with a minimum at six months. In the first postpartum year, an increase in leave duration is associated with a decrease in depressive symptoms until six months postpartum. Moreover, ordinary least squares analysis showed a marginally significant linear positive association between leave duration and physical health. Taking leave from work provides time for mothers to rest and recover from pregnancy and childbirth. Findings indicate that the current leave duration provided by the Family and Medical Leave Act, twelve weeks, may not be sufficient for mothers at risk for or experiencing postpartum depression.
We study the impact of maternal care on early child development using an expansion in Canadian maternity leave entitlements. Following the leave expansion, mothers who took leave spent between 48 and 58 percent more time not working in the first year of their children's lives. We find that this extra maternal care primarily crowded out home-based care by unlicensed non-relatives, and replaced mostly full-time work. However, the estimates suggest a weak impact of the increase in maternal care on indicators of child development. Measures of family environment and motor-social development showed changes very close to zero. Some improvements in temperament were observed but occurred both for treated and untreated children.
This study examines the relationships between maternal employment, nonparental care, mother-child interactions, and preschoolers’ outcomes. Data from the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (N= 1,248) show that maternal employment during the previous year, especially full-time employment, was related to care by nonrelatives, longer hours in school settings, fewer positive mother-child interactions, and less reading with parents at ages 2 and 4. Controlling for these mediators, maternal employment was related to children’s lower hyperactivity, more prosocial behavior, and less anxiety at age 4, although little relationship was found at age 2. The results indicate that preschoolers may benefit from maternal employment, but benefits may be offset by long hours of nonparental care and fewer positive mother-child interactions.
American women still confront workplace barriers (e.g., bias against mothers, inflexible policies) that hinder their advancement at the upper levels of organizations. However, most Americans fail to recognize that such gender barriers still exist. Focusing on mothers who have left the workforce, we propose that the prevalent American assumption that actions are a product of choice conceals workplace barriers by communicating that opportunities are equal and that behavior is free from contextual influence. Study 1 reveals that stay-at-home mothers who view their own workplace departure as an individual choice experience greater well-being but less often recognize workplace barriers and discrimination as a source of inequality than do mothers who do not view their workplace departure as an individual choice. Study 2 shows that merely exposing participants to a message that frames actions in terms of individual choice increases participants' belief that society provides equal opportunities and that gender discrimination no longer exists. By concealing the barriers that women still face in the workplace, this choice framework may hinder women's long-term advancement in society.
This paper examines whether maternity leave policies have an effect on women's mental health in older age. We link data for women aged 50 years and above from countries in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to data on maternity leave legislation from 1960 onwards. We use a difference-in-differences approach that exploits changes over time within countries in the duration and compensation of maternity leave benefits, linked to the year women were giving birth to their first child at age 16 to 25. We compare late-life depressive symptom scores (measured with a 12-item version of the Euro-D scale) of mothers who were in employment in the period around the birth of their first child to depression scores of mothers who were not in employment in the period surrounding the birth of a first child, and therefore did not benefit directly from maternity leave benefits. Our findings suggest that a more generous maternity leave during the birth of a first child is associated with a reduced score of 0.38 points in the Euro-D depressive symptom scale in old age.
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The authors used data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 1,364) to examine maternal work hour status and parenting (sensitivity and learning opportunities) from infancy through middle childhood. Work hour status was conceptualized as nonemployment, part time, and full time. Adjusting for covariates, mothers employed part time had higher sensitivity scores and higher provision of child learning opportunity scores than did mothers who were not employed, and these differences characterized families during early childhood rather than middle childhood. Mothers' provision of child learning opportunities was greater when she was employed full time (vs. part time) during early childhood. In addition to child age, mothers' ethnic minority status and partner status moderated the association between maternal work hour status and mothers' parenting. In general, the findings supported ideas forwarded by role expansionist theory.
Objectives
The rise in nonmarital childbearing has raised concerns about coparenting among unmarried parents with increasingly complicated relationship trajectories. We address this issue by examining associations between mothers’ partnership transitions and coparenting and the moderating role of maternal race/ethnicity and child gender.Methods
Data from the Fragile Families Study and ordinary least squares regression techniques are used to examine whether mothers’ partnership transitions are related to coparenting. Lagged and fixed effects models are employed to test the robustness of the findings to selection.ResultsCoresidential and nonresidential dating transitions are negatively associated with coparenting, but the association is stronger for coresidential transitions than for dating transitions. Coresidential transitions are stronger predictors of coparenting for white parents than for black parents and for parents of sons than for parents of daughters.Conclusions
Policies aimed at strengthening families should emphasize relationship stability, regardless of the type of union, to promote high-quality coparenting among at-risk populations.
This article focuses on how maternal employment in nonstandard schedules at night, on the weekends, or that rotate on a weekly basis influence preschoolers’ behavioral outcomes. Examining low-income working mothers and their children aged 2 – 4 years from the Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three-City Study (N= 206), we find that maternal nonstandard schedules are associated with negative behavioral outcomes for young children. There is some evidence that the negative effects of nonstandard schedules on behavior problems operate indirectly through increased parenting stress. Moderating influences of child gender and family composition are also detected. These findings are consistent with the small number of studies demonstrating the negative effects of nonstandard schedules on children of varying ages.
A fundamental assumption of stratification theory is that the family is the unit of stratification, with no inequality between husband and wife. The argument here is that the condition for this spousal equality is the economic dependency of married women and that an examination of dependency is essential for understanding women's societal position. This paper examines changes in the extent to which married women were economically dependent on their husbands from 1940 to 1980. The finding is that the situation in 1980 is greatly different from the situation in 1940, when the vast majority of married women were completely dependent on spouses for economic support. Today, completely dependent wives constitute a distinct minority. Minority women have been less dependent than white women throughout this period. Married women become less dependent as they grow older, owing in part to the Social Security benefits that accrue to them regardless of work-force participation. A multivariate analysis pinpoints the source of most marital dependency as being the labor supply of married women. It also shows that married women must work longer hours than their husbands to contribute equally to family income.
Employment status, maternity leave, and role quality were investigated as predictors of women's mental health one year after delivery. Home-makers and part-time and full-time employees did not differ on measures of depression, anxiety, anger, or self-esteem. There were no main effects of leave length. Distress was associated with job overload, role restriction, and infant distress. Leave length interacted with the relative salience of work and family, and employment status interacted with employment preference to predict distress. Depression was greatest among women relatively high in work salience when leaves were long. Anxiety and anger were greatest among women whose employment status was not congruent with their preferences. These interactions underscore the importance of individual differences in responses to leave and work.
When social structures are viewed as made up of roles, social stability is not explicable as a function of (a) the normative consensual commitment of individuals or (b) normative integration. Instead, dissensus and role strain--the difficulty of fulfilling role demands--are normal. In a sequence of role bargains, the individual's choices are shaped by mechanisms, outlined here, through which he organizes his total role system and performs well or ill in any role relationship. Reduction of role strain is allocative or economic in form, but the economic model is different. "Third parties" interact with an individual and his alter, to keep their bargain within institutionalized limits. The larger social structure is held in place by role strains. The cumulative pattern of all such role bargains determines the flow of performances to all institutions. The research utility of this conception is explained.
Scholarship on work and family topics expanded in scope and coverage during the 2000-2010 decade, spurred by an increased diversity of workplaces and of families, by methodological innovations, and by the growth of communities of scholars focused on the work-family nexus. We discuss these developments as the backdrop for emergent work-family research on six central topics: (a) gender, time, and the division of labor in the home; (b) paid work: too much or too little; (c) maternal employment and child outcomes; (d) work-family conflict; (e) work, family, stress, and health; and (f) work-family policy. We conclude with a discussion of trends important for research and suggestions about future directions in the work-family arena.
Explored factors that influence parenting behavior through examination of previously reported and more recently developed models for predicting parenting behavior. Patterson's behavioral model, Abidin's initial model of parenting stress, and Belsky's process model of determinants of parenting are reviewed. A proposed model is presented to improve on previous models by integrating sociological, environmental, and behavioral factors, as well as personality characteristics of the parent, in predicting parenting behavior. Finally, description is provided on a new self-report measure (i.e., the Parenting Alliance Inventory) developed to focus on those aspects of the marital relationship that bear directly on parenting. Implications for future research are presented.
This study uses data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study on Early Child Care to examine the effects of maternal employment on maternal mental and overall health, self-reported parenting stress, and parenting quality. These outcomes are measured when children are 6 months old. Among mothers of 6-month-old infants, maternal work hours are positively associated with depressive symptoms and parenting stress and negatively associated with self-rated overall health. However, maternal employment is not associated with quality of parenting at 6 months, based on trained assessors' observations of maternal sensitivity.
This analysis uses March Current Population Survey data from 1999 to 2010 and a differences-in-differences approach to examine how California's first in the nation paid family leave (PFL) program affected leave-taking by mothers following childbirth, as well as subsequent labor market outcomes. We obtain robust evidence that the California program doubled the overall use of maternity leave, increasing it from an average of three to six weeks for new mothers--with some evidence of particularly large growth for less advantaged groups. We also provide evidence that PFL increased the usual weekly work hours of employed mothers of 1- to 3-year-old children by 10 to 17 percent and that their wage incomes may have risen by a similar amount.
Recent reports using cross-sectional data indicate an increase in the percentage of wives who outearn their husbands, yet we know little about the persistence of wives’ income advantage. The present analyses utilize the 1990 – 1994 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (N= 3,481) to examine wives’ long-term earnings advantage. Although a significant minority of women outearn their husbands in 1 year, considerably fewer do so for 5 consecutive years. The presence and persistence of wives’ income advantage vary by demographic characteristics, economic and human capital measures, and over the individual and marital life course. The findings suggest caution in interpreting women’s relative economic gains as signaling absolute progress toward eliminating gender inequality within marriages.
Data are reported on a series of short-form (SF) screening scales of DSM-III-R psychiatric disorders developed from the World Health Organization's Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). A multi-step procedure was used to generate CIDI-SF screening scales for each of eight DSM disorders from the US National Comorbidity Survey (NCS). This procedure began with the subsample of respondents who endorsed the CIDI diagnostic stem question for a given disorder and then used a series of stepwise regression analyses to select a subset of screening questions to maximize reproduction of the full CIDI diagnosis. A small number of screening questions, between three and eight for each disorder, was found to account for the significant associations between symptom ratings and CIDI diagnoses. Summary scales made up of these symptom questions correctly classify between 77% and 100% of CIDI cases and between 94% and 99% of CIDI non-cases in the NCS depending on the diagnosis. Overall classification accuracy ranged from a low of 93% for major depressive episode to a high of over 99% for generalized anxiety disorder. Pilot testing in a nationally representative telephone survey found that the full set of CIDI-SF scales can be administered in an average of seven minutes compared to over an hour for the full CIDI. The results are quite encouraging in suggesting that diagnostic classifications made in the full CIDI can be reproduced with excellent accuracy with the CIDI-SF scales. Independent verification of this reproduction accuracy, however, is needed in a data set other than the one in which the CIDI-SF was developed. Copyright © 1998 Whurr Publishers Ltd.
The Wisconsin Maternity Leave and Health Study addresses an important policy issue, parental leave, by investigating the work status, maternity leave, and mental health of 570 women. In the longitudinal design, the women, all of whom were living with a husband or partner, were interviewed during the fifth month of pregnancy, 1 month postpartum, and 4 months postpartum. At 4 months postpartum, full-time workers, part-time workers, and homemakers did not differ in depression or anger, but full-time workers showed elevated anxiety compared with the other two groups. In multiple regression analyses, length of leave interacted significantly with marital concerns when predicting depression; women who took a short leave (6 weeks or less) and were high on marital concerns had the highest depression scores. Short maternity leave can be conceptualized as a risk factor that, when combined with other risk factors such as marital concerns, places women at greater risk for depression.
Recent studies indicate that short maternity leave, and, more generally, full-time maternal employment during the first year of life, detract from children's health, cognitive development, and behavioral outcomes. Much less is known, however, about how early parental employment affects the mental and physical health of the mothers themselves.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the association between short family leave length (less than 12 weeks of total leave after childbirth, less than 8 weeks of paid leave) and mental and physical health outcomes among new mothers.
Data come from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study--Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), a nationally representative sample of 14,000 children born in 2001 and followed until kindergarten entry. We focus on a sample of ECLS-B mothers from the first wave of the survey who had worked during pregnancy and who had returned to work by the time of the first follow-up interview, which was conducted about 9 months after childbirth. When examining the effects of paternal leave, we further restrict this sample to mothers who were married at the time of the first follow-up interview. The maternal health outcomes of interest are measures of depression and overall health status. We use standard OLS and ordered probit models, as well as two-stage least squares and two-stage residual inclusion methods which address the potential endogeneity of family leave with respect to maternal health.
Our findings from the OLS and ordered probit models indicate that, for mothers who worked prior to childbirth and who return to work in the first year, having less than 12 weeks of maternal leave and having less than 8 weeks of paid maternal leave are both associated with increases in depressive symptoms, and having less than 8 weeks of paid leave is associated with a reduction in overall health status. Findings from models that address the potential endogeneity of maternal leave generally support these results, and suggest that longer leave may improve the health of new mothers.
Our findings suggest that longer leave after childbirth may benefit families. However, one potential drawback of using cross-sectional variation in state policies and community characteristics for identification is that these measures may be correlated with other unmeasured factors that directly influence family leave and maternal health.
The mother's mental and physical health can be an important route through which infants are affected by parents' employment decisions. Our findings suggest that post-partum health services that target mothers' mental and physical health, and its effects on infants, may be useful.
Our findings suggest that policies that support longer family leave may benefit maternal mental health. Implications for Further Research: Future research should examine how workplace and public policies related to maternal employment can be used to improve families' health outcomes.
This paper investigates the role of the extended parental leave in the return to work for mothers of newborn children. Exploiting
the variability in policies offered by the European countries, the paper studies the influence of statutory leave characteristics—length
of the job-protection and payments during the leave-period—on the hazard of returning to work at different ages of the child.
Results suggest that longer periods of job-protection increase the hazard of returning to work; on the other hand, providing
paid leaves increases the probability of remaining at home during the first year of life of the child.
This paper studies the efficient estimation of a large class of multi-valued treatment effects as implicitly defined by a collection of possibly over-identified non-smooth moment conditions when the treatment assignment is assumed to be ignorable. Two estimators are introduced together with a set of sufficient conditions that ensure their -consistency, asymptotic normality and efficiency. Under mild assumptions, these conditions are satisfied for the Marginal Mean Treatment Effect and the Marginal Quantile Treatment Effect, estimands of particular importance for empirical applications. Previous results for average and quantile treatments effects are encompassed by the methods proposed here when the treatment is dichotomous. The results are illustrated by an empirical application studying the effect of maternal smoking intensity during pregnancy on birth weight, and a Monte Carlo experiment.
This article reviews recent research (1999 - 2009) on the effects of parenthood on wellbeing. We use a life course framework to consider how parenting and childlessness influence well-being throughout the adult life course. We place particular emphasis on social contexts and how the impact of parenthood on well-being depends on marital status, gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. We also consider how recent demographic shifts lead to new family arrangements that have implications for parenthood and well-being. These include stepparenting, parenting of grandchildren, and childlessness across the life course.
Although comprehensive and ecological approaches to early childhood prevention are commonly advocated, there are few examples of long-term follow-up of such programs. In this monograph, we investigate the medium- and long-term effects of an ecological, community-based prevention project for primary school children and families living in three economically disadvantaged neighborhoods in Ontario, Canada. The Better Beginnings, Better Futures (BBBF) project is one of the most ambitious Canadian research projects on the long-term impacts of early childhood prevention programming to date. Bronfenbrenner's ecological model of human development informed program planning, implementation, and evaluation. Using a quasi-experimental design, the BBBF longitudinal research study involved 601 children and their families who participated in BBBF programs when children were between 4 and 8 years old and 358 children and their families from sociodemographically matched comparison communities. We collected extensive child, parent, family, and community outcome data when children were in Grade 3 (age 8–9), Grade 6 (age 11–12), and Grade 9 (age 14–15). The BBBF mandate was to develop programs that would positively impact all areas of child's development; our findings reflect this ecological approach. We found marked positive effects in social and school functioning domains in Grades 6 and 9 and evidence of fewer emotional and behavioral problems in school across the three grades. Parents from BBBF sites reported greater feelings of social support and more positive ratings of marital satisfaction and general family functioning, especially at the Grade 9 follow-up. Positive neighborhood-level effects were also evident. Economic analyses at Grade 9 showed BBBF participation was associated with government savings of $912 per child. These findings provide evidence that an affordable, ecological, community-based prevention program can promote long-term development of children living in disadvantaged neighborhoods and produce monetary benefits to government as soon as 7 years after program completion.
Objective. Mental health disorders are of great social, economic, and policy concern. A higher incidence of major depressive disorder has been reported among women living in or near poverty. Our study examines the extent to which the relationship between income and depression is mediated by measures of material hardship.
Methods. We use measures of depression at two points in time from the longitudinal Fragile Families Survey to better discern the causal direction of the relationship between income poverty, hardship, and depression. More specifically, we use conditional logistic fixed-effect models that control for time-invariant unmeasured heterogeneity in the sample.
Results. We found a strong relationship between hardships and depression. The most prominent hardships were problems paying bills and phone turned off. We also found that hardship helped mediate much, though not all, of the link between poverty and depression in the conditional fixed-effects logistic regression models.
Conclusion. Our policy simulations suggest that public health efforts to reduce depression may be enhanced from efforts that focus on specific forms of material hardship.
We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine associations between first-year maternal employment and child outcomes for 3-year-old white, Black, and Hispanic children. We find that first-year maternal employment is associated with lower vocabulary scores for white, but not Black or Hispanic, children and with elevated levels of aggressive behavior problems for Hispanic, but not white or Black, children. Factors such as the timing and intensity of employment, family structure, and maternal education sometimes moderate these associations, but do not explain differences across racial and ethnic groups. Child care and parenting behaviors do not appear to mediate associations between first-year maternal employment and children’s outcomes and cannot explain racial and ethnic differences in these associations.
More mothers engage in marketplace work today than ever before, with over 33% returning to work by the time their child is 3 months old. This article identifies the effects of maternal marketplace work in the initial months of an infant's life on the child's cognitive development. Results suggest that such work in the first year of a child's life has detrimental effects. Where significant, the results also indicate negative effects of maternal employment in the child's first quarter of life. However, the negative effects of maternal marketplace work are partially offset by positive effects of increased family income.
Drawing upon symbolic interactionist theory, this paper reconceptualizes social isolation as the possession of few social identities. Social identities (enacted in role relationships) give meaning and guidance to behavior, and thus should prevent anxiety, depression, and disordered conduct. The "identity accumulation hypothesis"--the more identities possessed by an actor, the less psychological distress he/she should exhibit--is tested and supported using panel data from the New Haven community survey (Myers et al., 1971). The interaction between identity accumulation and identity change is also examined, under differing assumptions regarding the structure of multiple identities. Results indicate that integrated individuals benefit more from identity gain and also suffer more from identity loss than isolated individuals. The implications of these results for social isolation theory and for previous conceptions of the effects of multiple roles are discussed.
Parental and maternity leave policies are a popular fringe benefit among childbearing employed women and a benefit employers frequently are required to offer. However, few rigorous evaluations of the effect of maternal leave on maternal health exist.
Using a hybrid of the household and health production theories of Becker and Grossman and a sample of women identified from state vital statistics records, a nonlinear relationship between maternal postpartum health and time off work after childbirth was estimated.
For women taking more than 12 weeks leave, time off work had a positive effect on vitality. With more than 15 weeks leave, time off work had a positive effect on maternal, mental health, and with more than 20 weeks leave, time off work had a positive effect on role function. Subjects' mental health scores were comparable and vitality scores slightly lower than age- and gender-specific norms; 70% of women studied reported role function limitations.
Findings suggest employed women experience problems in well-being at approximately seven months postpartum. Variables associated with improved health include: longer maternity leaves, fewer prenatal mental health symptoms, fewer concurrent physical symptoms, more sleep, increased social support, increased job satisfaction, less physical exertion on the job, fewer infant symptoms, and less difficulty arranging child care.
This study tested predictions from economic and developmental theories that maternal time with an infant is important for mother-child relationships and children's development, using time-use diaries for mothers of 7- to 8-month-old infants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care (N = 1,053). Employment reduced time with infants, but mothers compensated for some work time by decreasing time in other activities. With family and maternal characteristics controlled, time with infants predicted high Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) scores and maternal sensitivity, but bore little relation to children's engagement with mothers, secure attachment, social behavior, or cognitive performance from 15 to 36 months. Mothers who spent more time at work had higher HOME scores. Maternal time with infants may reflect maternal characteristics that affect both time allocation and maternal behavior.
Assessment of the literature on the length of maternity leaves and health of mothers and children; evaluation of the Swiss situation in view of the maternity leave policy implemented in 2005.
Review of thirteen original studies identified by PubMed using topic-related terms.
A positive association was shown between the length of maternity leave and mother's mental health and duration of breastfeeding. Extended maternity leaves were also associated with lower perinatal, neonatal and post-neonatal mortality rates as well as lower child mortality; however, results are obtained in ecological studies. There is less evidence regarding other health outcomes. The new policy in Switzerland extends maternity leave for a considerable number of women to 14 weeks. With this prolongation, fewer depressive symptoms and longer breastfeeding duration can be expected, while benefits regarding other health outcomes would warrant longer leaves.
Longer maternity leaves are likely to produce health benefits. The new policy in Switzerland will probably improve the situation of those women, who previously were granted only minimal leave and/or mothers with additional social risk factors.
Length of maternity leave and quality of mother-infant interactions
- R Clark
- J Shibley Hyde
- M J Essex
- M H Klein
Balancing the needs of families and employers: Family and medical leave surveys
- D Cantor
- J Waldfogel
- J Kerwin
- M M Wright
- K Levin
- J Rauch
- . . Kudela
Paid family leave, fathers’ leave-taking, and leave-sharing in dual-earner households
- A P Bartel
- M Rossin-Slater
- C J Ruhm
- J Stearns
- J Waldfogel
First-year maternal employment and child development in the first seven years
- J Brooks-Gunn
- W Han
- J Waldfogel
Policies to assist parents with young children
- C J Ruhm
Maternity leave and employment patterns of first-time mothers
- L Laughlin
Paid parental leave in the United States: What the data tells us about access, usage, and economic and health benefits
- B Gault
- H Hartmann
- A Hegewisch
- J Milli
- L Reichlin
The impact of recent legislation on parents’ leave taking
- W Han
- J Waldfogel
The living arrangements of new unmarried mothers
- W Sigle-Rushton
- S Mclanahan
Work family supports for low-income families: Key research findings and policy trends
- P Winston
- Brooks-Gunn J.