The Effect of Working Mother Status on Children’s Education Attainment: Evidence from Longitudinal Data

Siti Nur Azizah,Eny Sulistyaningrum,Samsubar Saleh

doi:10.3390/economies10020054

Siti Nur Azizah, Eny Sulistyaningrum + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/economies10020054

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Abstract

This study builds on the debate on whether mothers‘ employment in the early life of children bring positive or negative impact to children in later life. This is based on the fact that employment often result in reduced family time in which mother may not be able to take care of their children fully. This study estimated the effects of mothers’ employment status on children’s education in the short-term and in the long-term in 24 provinces in Indonesia. This study used data on children from three waves of the Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS): IFLS-3 (in 2000) aged 0–7 years, IFLS-4 (in 2007) aged 7–14 years, and IFLS-5 (in 2014) aged 14–21 years. The outcome variable was the children’s education and the variable of interest was the mother’s employment status. To overcome endogeneity, the analysis of the relationship between outcome and interest variables in this study was done by using the ordinary least square estimation (OLS) method and instrumental variables (IV). This study also used a cross-sectional design which estimated IFLS-4 (in 2007) and IFLS-5 (in 2014), separately. The main finding suggests that the mother’s employment status positively influenced children’s education both in the short- and long-term, as evidenced by the ordinary least square estimation (OLS) results. The instrumental variable (IV) estimate showed that decision-making was a strong instrument; and, it further revealed that mothers’ decision-making within the family affected their opportunity to work. This research could contribute to strengthening working mothers’ self-border and the concept of work-family facilitation in a family. It could also become a reference for stakeholders involved in the policy making to regulate policies which facilitate and support working mother to create ideal working environment. This condition is expected to supports children’s development as well as creating equity for working mothers in Indonesia.

Highlights

Education plays a pivotal role in producing quality human resources (Hagglund and Samuelson 2009)
The data used in this study is panel data which is a combination of cross-section and time-series sourced from the three-wave Indonesia Family Live Survey (IFLS), IFLS-3 (2000), IFLS-4 (2007), and IFLS-5 (2014)
Data related to household characteristics and the employment status of mothers are available on the IFLS-3 (2000) basis

Summary

Introduction

Education plays a pivotal role in producing quality human resources (Hagglund and Samuelson 2009) With educators, it aims to guide children in the process of dialogic transformation so they can grow and shape their awareness, attitude, and critical thinking (Nurlaela 2013). It aims to guide children in the process of dialogic transformation so they can grow and shape their awareness, attitude, and critical thinking (Nurlaela 2013) For this reason, the success of children’s education can influence the sustainability and the growth of a nation (Maunah 2019). One of the survey indicators suggested that the low level of literacy among Indonesian students was due to a feudalistic education system In response to this poor performance in PISA, the Ministry of Education and Culture launched the concept of “Merdeka Belajar” (Learning Freedom) (Gatra 2021). Mothers play an important role in the process of children’s education as they are capable of molding children’s attitude toward education, which affects the first 9 years of schooling (Yulianti et al 2019); supporting children’s achievement in school; and increasing children’s test scores (Dunifon et al 2013; Sapungan and Sapungan 2014)

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