ABSTRACT
As the prevalence of employment among American mothers of young children has risen, much research has considered possible effects of maternal work experiences on children's lives. Early studies of such effects typically contrasted employed with nonemployed mothers on various cognitive and social child outcomes, with largely inconclusive results (Hoffman 1989. More recent studies have expanded this line of research in two important ways. First, studies have begun to focus more directly on the patterns of family interaction that mediate the effects of maternal employment on child outcomes (Menaghan 1991). Second, as the proportion of mothers who are employed has increased, attention has turned to variation in the occupational conditions that employed mothers experience and to theoretical arguments linking occupational conditions to family interaction and home environments.
