Desai S, Chase-Lansdale P L, Michael R T
Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, California 90406.
Demography. 1989 Nov;26(4):545-61.
This article uses the 1986 Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data set to investigate the impact of maternal employment on children's intellectual ability, as measured at the age of 4 by using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT). Results from multivariate regression analysis show a statistically significant adverse effect of mother's employment on children's intellectual ability, but only for boys in higher income families. Furthermore, the negative impact was related to the timing of maternal employment: employment during the boys' infancy had a statistically significant negative effect on PPVT scores at the age of 4. This pattern was not found for girls, for children in low-income families, or for families in which mothers resumed their employment after the child's first year of life. The impact of other demographic trends in recent years--declining fertility and rising marital instability--are also investigated. The results show an adverse effect of the presence of other siblings on children's PPVT scores; but holding family income constant, the effect of the parents' marital status on children's intellectual ability is not statistically significant. In addition, several family background factors are highly correlated with children's test scores.
本文使用1986年全国青年纵向调查数据集来研究母亲就业对儿童智力的影响，儿童智力通过皮博迪图片词汇测验（PPVT）在4岁时进行测量。多元回归分析结果显示，母亲就业对儿童智力有统计学上显著的不利影响，但仅对高收入家庭中的男孩如此。此外，负面影响与母亲就业的时间有关：男孩婴儿期母亲就业对其4岁时的PPVT分数有统计学上显著的负面影响。女孩、低收入家庭的儿童或孩子一岁后母亲才重新就业的家庭中未发现这种模式。本文还研究了近年来其他人口趋势——生育率下降和婚姻不稳定加剧——的影响。结果显示，有其他兄弟姐妹会对儿童的PPVT分数产生不利影响；但在家庭收入不变的情况下，父母婚姻状况对儿童智力的影响在统计学上不显著。此外，几个家庭背景因素与儿童测试分数高度相关。
