Children of Working Parents

This report, a continuation of "Families That Work: Children in a Changing World," presents six papers which examine the effects of working parents on the socialization and intellectual development of children. Data were obtained from approximately 75 sources which met the following criteria: information from two or more relevant domains (government policies, the workforce, the family, etc.), large sample size, data on varied or special populations, sample drawn from more than one political jurisdiction or geographic region, longitudinal or cross-cohort designs, and machine readable data. Because of lack of data on fathers' employment, many analyses are limited to the consequences of maternal employment. The six papers analyze peer relationship in children of working parents; work status, television exposure, and educational outcomes; parental employment and the family-school relationship; children's access to support and services outside the school; and the effects of mothers' employment on adolescent and early adult outcomes. The general conclusion is that parental employment is not a uniform condition with consistent effects on all children in all families. Income, race, and family structure as well as the special characteristics of the child and the supportive services available to the family seem to be far more important than whether their mothers work in determining how children develop. Specific research needs and a compendium of existing data sources are included. (KC)