ABSTRACT
Although this commentary will deal mainly with infant care, let me, first, emphasize the good news about the effects of maternal employment and child care on children's development, in general, because I don't think it is amply recognized. In its 1982 report, the Panel on Work, Family, and Community of the National Academy of Sciences wrote defensively about the effects of maternal employment on children (Kamerman & Hayes, 1982). The panel concluded merely that no general statements could be made about the effects of maternal employment on children. The report rejected the idea that maternal employment had uniformly negative effects, but it went no further. I think we can now make a more positive statement. Most research conducted in the 1980s has shown no significant detrimental effects of maternal employment and out-of-home care on children age 1 and older. The best recent evidence can be found in two studies of data on the children of a national sample of adults in their 20s (Baydar & Brooks-Gunn, in press; Desai, Chase-Lansdale, & Michael, 1989). This survey of adults is called the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). The information on their children has come to be known as the “Children of the NLSY” data set. In 1986, the children of the respondents were given several standard psychological assessments, and the work histories of their mothers and fathers were obtained. The two studies focused on 3- and 4-year-olds; both sets of researchers concluded that the children's scores on a test of verbal ability and on a behavior problems scale were not affected by whether their mothers worked after their children turned 1. This was the first, large-scale, nationally representative data we have had on maternal employment, child care, and children's well-being. The parallel findings are the best evidence yet that maternal employment after a child's first birthday does not itself create a problem. Of course, if the child-care arrangement is poor, children can suffer; but, in general, mothers' employment doesn't harm children over the age of 1. That is an important statement for the debates about child-care policy.
