Working mothers

Data from the CLOSER studies shows that in general mothers are more likely to work as their children get older. Women who go back to work after longer breaks from employment are particularly likely to have part-time jobs. In the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) forty-eight per cent of mothers were working when their child was 9 months old (35 per cent part time and 13 per cent full-time), compared to 61 per cent by the time they were age 7 (45 per cent part-time and 16 per cent full-time).

Seventy per cent of MCS mothers who were working part time nine months after their child was born had a job with longer hours than when they were pregnant. Switching from full-time to part-time work was associated with a change in employer, a decrease in relative hourly pay and lower job status.

The Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) is a good source of evidence on the impact of working on breastfeeding, as it is only in recent years that many mothers have been employed while they have children of breastfeeding age. Analysis of the MCS has revealed that women who were employed full-time were less likely to start breastfeeding than those who were self-employed, unless their employer offered supportive working arrangements. They were also less likely to breastfeed their children for at least four months, which was then the recommended minimum. Mothers who returned to work within four months of giving birth were less likely to breastfeed their children either at all, or for more than four months.

A recent analysis of the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) and the children of mothers in the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) found no association between children’s literacy, maths ability and behaviour and their mothers going out to work during the first year of their lives. Although earlier research based on other CLOSER studies had identified a small disadvantage in literacy among children born between 1970 and the mid-1990s whose mothers had worked in their early years, the new findings indicate that this disadvantage has disappeared for younger generations.

Researchers looking at the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) found that children were more likely to be overweight at age 3 if their mother had been employed at any point since they were born. Among families in the top income groups the likelihood of three-year-olds carrying excess weight also increased with every 10 hours their mother worked per week. There was no relationship between obesity in early childhood and whether or not the child’s father worked.

Another analysis of MCS data examined the relationship between working mothers and children’s health behaviours at age 5. The findings revealed that children with mothers who worked part-time or full-time were more likely to primarily consume sweetened soft-drinks between meals than children whose mothers had never been employed. They were also more likely to use the computer or