Effect Of Maternal

Employment Upon Children

Subject :Child Psychology
Presented By :Maryam Saeed
 Maternal Employment :
• Maternal mean relating to, belonging to, or characteristic of a mother.
• Refers to the labor force affiliation of mother with children 0 to 18
years. Includes full part time work contracting and working out of the
home.
• The psychological effects of child labor should not be ignored.
• Depression, drug dependency, post traumatic stress disorder( PTSD)
and other mental health issues are common place.
.
Quality of mother's time
• Maternal employment could be linked to parental stress, direction
unclear.
• Depends on work conditions, 40% of working moms always feel
rushed and 56% find it difficult to balance work and family.
• parental stress is associated with parent child interaction.
Research
• To increase the quantity and quality of the time mothers spend with
their infants and based on the belief that the early months of a child's
life are important for future cognitive and emotional development
( Lewis 1979,Harris 1983)
For example
• Mother's whose children are not doing well socially or academically
may reduce their work hours to invest more time in child rearing.
Maternal employment affect a child's
emotional development
• Child may develop fear and insecurity feelings, lack of confidence and
a decline in performance at school.
Effects of maternal employment on children’s
development
• A large and significant negative effect of maternal employment on
children’s non cognitive development as indicated by the Behavior
Problems Index (BPI).On average children with working mothers are
significantly more likely to display distress, anxiety, and similar
emotional problems.
Advantages :
• Working Mother Children are Smart:
• Independent:
• Inculcate good habits:
Working Mother Children are Smart :
• The children of working mothers become smart and active as
compared to the children of non-working mothers. This is because of
the fact that the mothers being working have to move out of the
house leaving all the household chores intact.
• The children behind understand their responsibilities and manage to
do all their tasks without being dependent on others, thus become
smart and active enough
Independent :
• The children become independent as they don’t find their mother at
home all day long and thus they are left with no other option than
doing their homework, breakfast, packing bags for school, preparing
uniforms and all such things of their own.
• Doing all those little tasks that a child can do on his own makes him
independent and responsible.
Inculcate good habits :
• By seeing the fathers being a helping hand to mothers, children learn
good habits and inculcate manners of helping others as well as their
mothers, thus in this way good habits are inculcated in them.
Disadvantages :
• Health issues may arise:
• Children may feel alone and fall into a bad company:
• Mothers are not able to attend important school meetings of kids
• Less time for kids:
Health issues may arise :
• Having the same routine regularly without any rest may lead to health
issues and other problems which also ruins the family life.
• If the mother becomes ill, the kids and the husband both are affected
and this creates tension in one’s life.
 Children may feel alone and fall into a bad
company :
• Children get freedom in excess when they don’t see mothers around
to stop them from vices. This way they may fall into bad company and
inculcate vices in them.

• Not only this, they might feel alone and find for the company as
mothers are not available for kids due to work.
Mother are not able to attend important
school meetings of kids :
• Due to office work, working mothers are not able to attend the school
meetings, functions etc. which may develop feelings of inferiority and
guilt in them.

• Such cases may end children going into depression, thus affecting
their health to a larger extent.
Less time for kids :
• A working woman is not able to devote quality time to their kids. This
way the kids are not able to share their feelings and remain quite over
the important matters.
• This makes them introvert and are not able to express their feeling
with parents. But this problem can be solved if they gain time
management skills.