Trinity College Dublin, Department of Sociology, 3 College Green, Dublin, 2, Ireland.
Soc Sci Med. 2024 Aug;354:117077. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.117077. Epub 2024 Jun 27.
Although a large body of research has documented the negative effects of insecure employment for adult workers, less is known about the consequences for their children's well-being. Our understanding of the mechanisms through which insecure maternal employment may affect children is particularly limited. This study examines the relationship between insecure maternal employment and child behaviour difficulties from the age of 4-16 using seven waves of data for nearly 5000 families from Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. Employing fixed effects models to account for unobserved time-invariant heterogeneity, we found that children whose mothers were casual contract employees or economically inactive had greater behaviour difficulties, on average, than their peers whose mothers were permanent employees. Maternal mental health and parenting, rather than household financial strain, contributed to explaining the association between insecure maternal employment and child behaviour difficulties. These results were more pronounced for younger children (up to the age of 12). This study contributes to the literature on the consequences of maternal employment insecurity for child mental health in high-income countries by clarifying the mechanisms behind this association.
尽管大量研究记录了不稳定就业对成年工人的负面影响，但对于其对子女福祉的影响知之甚少。我们对不稳定的产妇就业可能影响儿童的机制的理解尤其有限。本研究使用澳大利亚儿童纵向研究的近 5000 个家庭的七轮数据，从 4-16 岁的儿童行为困难角度，检验了不稳定的产妇就业与儿童行为困难之间的关系。本研究采用固定效应模型来解释不可观测的时间不变异质性，结果发现，与母亲为固定员工的同龄人相比，母亲为临时工或经济不活跃的儿童，其行为困难程度平均更高。产妇心理健康和育儿，而不是家庭经济压力，有助于解释不稳定的产妇就业与儿童行为困难之间的关联。对于年龄较小的儿童（最多 12 岁），这一结果更为明显。本研究通过澄清这种关联背后的机制，为高收入国家产妇就业不稳定对儿童心理健康后果的文献做出了贡献。
