Developmental Comparisons between Ten-Year-Old Children with Employed and Nonemployed Mothers

GOLD, DOLORES, and ANDRES, DAVID. Developmental Comparisons between Ten-Year-Old Children with Employed and Nonemployed Mothers. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1978, 49, 75-84. This study tested hypotheses specifying differential relations between maternal employment and children's development, dependent on the sex of the child and the socioeconomic class of the family. An examination was made of the sex-role concepts, personality adjustment, and academic achievement of 223 10-year-old girls and boys with either full-time employed or nonemployed mothers from working-class or middle-class families. The data provided some support for the hypotheses. Children with employed mothers had the most egalitarian sex-role concepts; however, this appears primarily related to their mothers' greater satisfaction with their roles. Maternal employment status was partly related to the adjustment of the children. Middle-class boys with employed mothers had lower scores on language and mathematics achievement tests than the other middle-class children. Employed mothers and their husbands reported more similar behavior patterns within the home and attitudes that differed somewhat from those reported by nonemployed mothers and their husbands. There were some associations between the parental and child measures.