In a recent study that contradicts another study, which probably contradicted another study, children of working moms are likely to have more health incidents than those with stay-at-home moms.
The paper, soon to be published in the Journal of Health Economics, found that children whose moms were employed outside the home were twice as likely to have been hospitalized, had an asthma attack or an injury or ingested something poisonous in the last year than kids whose moms weren’t working.
Inneresting.
The study’s results aren’t exactly shocking to us though. Obviously, the less supervision a child receives the more chance there is for an injury to occur.
The study’s author Melinda Sandler Morrill, an assistant professor of economics at North Carolina State University, says:
“[The study] provides one more piece of evidence about what happens to children when mothers work.”
However, the research isn’t entirely convincing that her findings are valid.
The study uses difficult-to-explain statistical techniques to try to make sure that the results were due only to the fact that the mom was working, rather than anything else. The study also doesn’t take into consideration that if the same mother hadn’t been working, what would the child’s health look like then?
This study doesn’t hold much ground for us and we think it’s impossible to generalize the effectiveness of a parent’s ability to raise a child or keep it safe based on their professional status.
Accidents happen, but if there is enough love, that child will flourish!
[Image via AP Images.]
