Early maternal employment and children's academic and behavioral skills: A comparative analysis (original) (raw)

Early Maternal Employment and Children’s Academic and Behavioral Skills: A Comparative Analysis Caitlin McPherran Lombardi Dissertation Chair: Rebekah Levine Coley, Ph.D. The goal of this dissertation was to delineate the repercussions of early maternal employment for children’s early developmental competencies in the U.S., Australia, and the U.K. and to test economic and psychological theories regarding potential mechanisms linking maternal employment with children’s development, including time, money, and stress. Prior research has focused on older, non-representative cohorts of American children, with results suggesting full-time employment in the first year after childbirth is linked with lower cognitive and behavioral skills. It is unclear if these same patterns exist in more recent cohorts and in other countries with differing cultural expectations and policy environments for families, most notably more comprehensive parental leave policies. Data came from representative sampl...