ABSTRACT
Developmental research on the connections between work, family life, and children’s development has had a very narrow focus. Echoing widespread public concerns, early studies anticipated that the simple fact of mothers’ employment would deprive children of the nurturant care necessary for healthy social, emotional, and intellectual development (see reviews by Bronfenbrenner & Crouter, 1982; Hoffman, 1979, 1989). However, the evidence accumulating from studies comparing outcomes for children of employed women to outcomes for children of women who remain at home does not support this social problem perspective on maternal employment. In fact, there has been little evidence of direct associations, positive or negative, between measures of children’s well-being and their mothers’ employment status per se (Bronfenbrenner & Crouter, 1982; Gottfried & Gottfried, 1988; Hoffman, 1979, 1989). Reviewers have concluded from this lack of evidence that additional comparisons between the children of employed and nonemployed women will be of little use. To provide further insight into the connections between work and family that are important for children’s development, research must, as Hoffman (1989) has observed, “examine the relationships between the mother’s employment status and the intervening steps that mediate the effects on the child” (p. 283).
