Bryan News
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- Ruhm: Children of Affluent Working Mothers May Be at Risk
- Accounting Alum Honored with UNCG Young Alumni Award
- International Business Ethics Lecture, Oct. 2
- Economist's Research in Newsweek
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- Woo to Speak at UNCG on Organizational Ethics Sept. 3
- Other Bryan School News
UNCG Economist: Children of Affluent Working Mothers May Be at Risk for Obesity, Low Test Scores
GREENSBORO, NC – Children of affluent mothers who work more than 20 hours a week are more likely to be overweight and to perform poorly on cognitive tests than their peers whose mothers work less, according to a new study conducted by Dr. Christopher Ruhm, Jefferson-Pilot Excellence Professor of Economics in the Bryan School of Business and Economics at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
The study, published in the European journal Labour Economics, looked at advantaged and disadvantaged working mothers as defined by variables that included education, ethnicity, marital status and income prior to pregnancy. Children of mothers with high socioeconomic status who work outside the home did less well on vocabulary and math tests and weighed more than less-advantaged counterparts.
Conversely, children in low socioeconomic status families showed no cognitive impairment or weight gain when their mothers worked, and may even have benefitted slightly from having working mothers.
The study, which focused on children ages 10-11, used data from multiple years of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth which is issued by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
While the study showed that working 40 hours a week decreased expected test scores for affluent adolescents, those children still did better on tests than less-advantaged children.
More than 90 percent of all mothers now work during the first 10 years of a child’s life. When work tops 20 hours per week, the more “deleterious” effects related to maternal employment start to show up, especially for affluent mothers, notes Ruhm.
“High socioeconomic status adolescents often have access to enriching home environments that may include activities such as music lessons, visits to museums and nutritious meals,” observes Ruhm. “When mothers work, their children may spend time in environments that don’t include those enriching activities.”
“While working is a risk factor for work-family balance, the message isn’t that mothers should stop working, it’s that we need policies that support working families,” says Ruhm, whose prior research has examined parental leave policies, the impact on childrens’ cognitive development when both parents work and how economic downturns favor healthy behavioral choices such as drinking less and exercising more.
The Bryan School is the largest of UNCG’s six professional schools with 450 graduate students and 2,200 undergraduates. It is accredited by AACSB International, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business and is among the top 10 percent of business schools nationwide that have earned accreditation at the undergraduate and graduate levels in both business and accounting.
For more information, contact the Bryan School of Business and Economics at (336) 334-5338 or visit bryanschool.uncg.edu. ###