UNU-WIDER researchers present research on maternal employment and children's outcomes at World Bank seminar

Researchers with the Women's work – Routes to social and economic empowerment project give a presentation as a part of the East Asia and Pacific World Bank group's 'Half-baked Seminar Series'. Maria Lo Bue, Elizaveta Perova, and Ervin Dervisevic present preliminary work on the forthcoming WIDER Working Paper ‘Maternal employment and children’s outcomes: Evidence from Indonesia”. The seminar is attended by invitees at the World Bank, UNU-WIDER, and other development organizations.

Abstract:

There is extensive evidence that demonstrates that provision of childcare increases women’s labor force participation in developing countries, and depending on the parameters of childcare provision, may improve other women’s labor market outcomes (Mateo Diaz and Rodriguez-Chamussy 2016; Halim et al., 2019; Du and Dong, 2013; Jain, 2016). The evidence on impacts of maternal employment on children’s development outcomes is less conclusive: they range from negative (Baum, 2003) to positive (Bernal and Fernandez, 2013). This project relies on a combination of Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS) and labor force survey data, spanning 1997 to 2014, to identify causal impact of different types of maternal labor market engagement on children’s development, conditional on income. We attempt to move beyond the binary variable of working/not working and investigate how other characteristics of maternal and paternal labor market engagement (hours, formality, industry) affect children’s health and education outcomes throughout early childhood years.