Life-Course Effects of Work and Family Circumstances on Children

How do work and family circumstances shape young children's emotional well-being and behavior ? To what extent can parental resources act as buffers against adverse effects ? The authors investigate these questions using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth for a synthetic cohort of 2,342 six- and seven-year-old children born to a national cohort of young women between 1979 and 1984. As suggested by a life-course perspective, both maternal resources and current family and parental employment conditions directly impact children's behavior problems. Maternal resources also have indirect effects through current work and family circumstances. The results suggest that improvements in current work and family circumstances can enhance children's well-being, even for children whose mothers have poorer emotional and cognitive resources