Department of Sociology, McGill University, Room 712, Leacock Building, 855 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2T7, Canada.
Center for Global Development, Department of Global Health, Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, 950 New Hampshire Ave, NW, 4th Floor, Washington, DC, 20052, USA.
Soc Sci Med. 2019 Mar;224:94-105. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.02.009. Epub 2019 Feb 6.
The increase in female labor force participation (FLFP) in the paid labor market since the mid-1900s is one of the most pronounced family transitions and increasingly a global phenomenon. While this may improve income and bargaining power of the women, it may also increase stress and decrease time with children. Using the Chitwan Valley Family Study in Nepal, we explore the consequences of this transition for children's health by combining newly collected data on child health outcomes, quarterly data on women's employment, and data on households and neighborhoods. Regression models were used to estimate the relationship between FLFP and child health, exploring both the type (wage, salary, or own business) and timing of work across the child's first five years for 860 children born to 793 mothers. After adjusting for a robust set of individual, household, and community factors, FLFP is associated with worse child health. We find evidence this is largely due to wage labor, the more common but "lower quality" and lower paying type of work women do. Measures of current work are generally inadequate at capturing this negative relationship. Breastfeeding may be an important piece of this story as mothers that worked during the first six months of a child's life were less likely to exclusively breastfeed during this period. Recognizing the challenges faced by working mothers in LMICs and paying attention to the quality of work will be critical as more women enter the workforce.
自 20 世纪中期以来，女性劳动力参与率（FLFP）在有偿劳动力市场中的增长是最显著的家庭转型之一，而且越来越成为一种全球现象。虽然这可能会提高女性的收入和议价能力，但也可能会增加压力并减少与子女相处的时间。利用尼泊尔奇特旺谷家庭研究，我们通过结合新收集的儿童健康结果数据、妇女就业的季度数据以及家庭和社区数据，探讨了这种转型对儿童健康的影响。回归模型用于估计 FLFP 与儿童健康之间的关系，探索了在孩子的前五年中，妇女工作的类型（工资、薪水或自己的生意）和时间，涉及 793 位母亲的 860 名儿童。在调整了一系列个体、家庭和社区因素后，FLFP 与儿童健康状况较差有关。我们发现，这主要是由于工资劳动造成的，这是女性从事的更为常见但“质量较低”且薪酬较低的工作类型。当前工作的衡量标准通常无法捕捉到这种负面影响。母乳喂养可能是这个故事的重要一环，因为在孩子生命的头六个月工作的母亲在此期间更不可能进行纯母乳喂养。认识到 LMIC 中职业母亲面临的挑战，并关注工作质量，将在更多女性进入劳动力市场时至关重要。
