Abstract
Since approximately 40% of the global workforce are women, a comprehensive understanding of association of maternal employment with child dietary patterns, physical activity and sedentary behaviour needs more focus. This systematic review aims to identify the association between maternal employment and dietary patterns (DP), physical activity (PA) and sedentary behaviour (SB) of children and adolescents (6 to 18 years). Searches were performed using electronic databases and manual searches. Peer reviewed journal articles, conference papers, theses at masters/doctoral levels in English were included. A total 42 studies met selection criteria, which indicated associations between maternal employment and at least one of the domains of interest: DP, PA and/or SB. Using individual samples of analysis, it was found that, 9 samples of DP, 11 samples of PA and 12 samples of SB were positively correlated with maternal employment, whereas 25 samples of DP, 5 samples of PA and 5 samples of SB showed an opposite association. Results suggest that PA and SB were positively related with maternal employment, whereas DP had an inverse relationship. Findings from this review provide evidence that children of employed mothers had poorer DP and greater prevalence of SB, however, their children are more physically active. Future interventions need to create a positive environment at the workplace and for families to support employed mothers and improve children’s dietary patterns and decrease sedentary behaviours. Future studies should prioritise the domains of DP, PA and SB that have been studied inadequately and have inconsistent results.
Highlights
Two important worldwide trends can be identified in recent years: increasing prevalence of childhood overweight/obesity and increasing participation of women in the paid labour force
Most of the studies are from HIC, findings may not be similar in the context of low to middle-income countries (LMIC). This is the first systematic review that summarises the evidence for links between dietary patterns, physical activity, and sedentary behaviour of children with the employment status of their mothers
The latter were for TV viewing and other screen-based activities of children. These findings provide an indication of how maternal employment may increase the risk of childhood obesity
Summary
Two important worldwide trends can be identified in recent years: increasing prevalence of childhood overweight/obesity and increasing participation of women in the paid labour force. Childhood obesity is an emerging salient public health challenge of the 21st century (WHO, 2020). According to World Development Indicator (World Bank, 2020), worldwide female employment rate increased substantially in the last century. Employment creates a double burden for women as they often take the family responsibilities of unpaid household tasks and childcare due to traditional division of labour. Balancing with daily multiple roles and responsibilities, employment may impact upon the wellbeing of children if, as hypothesized, employed mothers spend less time on household activities centred on children, such as children’s diet and physical activity (Bianchi, 2000; Cawley and Liu, 2012). Employment may contribute to greater economic opportunities and resources, which may enhance health and wellbeing (Waddell and Burton, 2006)
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