When are you coming back? Effect of state-subsidized and employer-sponsored childcare on mothers’ return to work

We examine whether a mother's early return to work after her first birth improves her employment status in the short term and the long term (3 and 10/12 years after the child's birth). Specifically, this research investigates whether a mother is more likely to be in full‐time employment if she returns to work within 1 year of childbirth (i.e. without using her allowable parental leave to the full). We estimate recursive bivariate probit models for a mother's early return to work and her subsequent employment status using July births as an instrument. Our approach is unique in that we shed light on the relationship between the timing of a birth (birth month) and the timing of a mother's return to work after childbirth. The birth month affects the cut‐off dates for admission into a licensed childcare facility in Japan, which, in turn, affects the timing of a mother's return to work. Our empirical evidence reveals that a mother's early return to work after her first birth has a positive causal effect on the likelihood of her being in full‐time employment in the long term (10 and 12 years after childbirth). We do not find any causal effect of an early return to work on working full time in the short term (3 years after childbirth).

Purpose– Human resource management (HRM) practices are implemented to improve outcomes, such as reducing turnover, absenteeism, and improving performance. Using social exchange theory (SET), the purpose of this paper is to examine one HRM practice that has received less attention by researchers: employer-sponsored childcare assistance programs.Design/methodology/approach– Study 1 – a field study compared three groups of hospital employees’ (n=148) attitudes and behaviors using MANCOVA/ANOVA over two time periods. Study 2 – using a field study, on-site and voucher childcare assistance programs were evaluated in terms of the cost to the organization and the relationship to attitudinal variables.Findings– Study 1 – results indicated that employee performance was higher and absenteeism lower for employees using the on-site childcare center than employees using an off-site center or with no children. Although the attitudinal results did not align with hypotheses, they were not inconsistent with SET. Study 2 – results indicate that childcare assistance programs may be a beneficial HRM practice for organizations to implement.Research limitations/implications– One limitation of Study 1 is the small sample size. Future research should continue to examine how employee benefits like childcare programs affect employees, as well as examine how such benefits differentially employees who value and do not value the benefits. In Study 2, although the authors randomly selected the sample of on-site and voucher programs, the health care facilities self-selected themselves to participate in the program and selected the type of childcare program, a potential source of bias. Future research should examine childcare assistance programs and their impact on work-family balance and strain-based conflict in a wider variety of samples.Practical implications– Implications for research and practice: Both studies offer researchers a “next step” in the evaluation of childcare assistance research. Additionally, these studies are of practical value to administrators/researchers in organizations who may be considering vouchers or on-site programs as they relate such programs to organizational outcomes.Originality/value– The first study is one of the few studies on this topic to use a field design with two time points and with multiple behaviors and attitudes. The second study provides a descriptive comparison of two types of childcare assistance programs, a comparison made by few studies to date.

We examined the mediating role of Korean immigrant mothers’ psychological well-being in the associations between mothers’ emotional vs. instrumental support received from their kin, and their authoritarian parenting style with their preschoolers using longitudinal data. First-generation Korean immigrant mothers with preschool-aged children (N = 158; M maternal age = 36.11 years, SD = 3.90; M child age = 4.43 years, SD = 1.10) residing in Maryland, U.S., participated in three assessment waves. Each assessment wave was 6 months apart. Mothers reported on the amount of perceived emotional and instrumental support they received from their kin, their behavioral acculturation towards the American culture, and their family demographic information at Wave 1, their psychological well-being at Wave 2, and their authoritarian parenting style at Wave 3. The results revealed that higher levels of perceived instrumental support (but not emotional support) received from kin predicted higher levels of maternal psychological well-being 6 months later, which in turn predicted lower levels of reported authoritarian parenting style 6 months later. Our findings highlighted the importance of psychological well-being as a mechanism that explains how instrumental support can impact Korean immigrant mothers’ parenting style, and the importance of distinguishing between types of support. Services providing instrumental support (e.g., childcare assistance) for first-generation immigrant mothers, particularly those with smaller or less effective kin networks, appear important to implement.

The grandparents’ retirement behavior has important support on mother’s employment quality. This paper aims to estimate the influence of grandparents’ retirement behavior on mother’s employment quality, based on the China Family Panel Studies of 2018. The findings reveal a significant enhancement in mother’s employment quality resulting from grandparents’ retirement behavior. The mediating effect of grandparents’ intergenerational caregiving explains approximately 68.77% of this improvement. Furthermore, the positive effect of grandparents’ retirement behavior on mother’s employment quality is more pronounced in families where the grandchild is older and in better health. Notably, the involvement of paternal grandparents yields more favorable outcomes compared to maternal grandparents. Findings from this study suggest that grandparent’s retirement behavior play an important role in mother’s employment quality through the provision of childcare assistance. Moreover, these findings highlight that the effectiveness of such support varies depending on the characteristics of both grandchildren and grandparents.

Some divorced single-parent mothers return home to live with their families of origin. The absence of clear delineation of the roles of grandmother, mother, and child can produce a dysfunctional family unit, identified here as trigenerational enmeshment. Clinical features of this subgroup are discussed, and examples of treatment approaches are presented.

Much of the gender pay gap is generated within workplaces, making it paramount to understand which workplace policies effectively address gaps. Our article asks when policies limit gender pay gaps across employee tenure to identify potential temporal weak points. We analyze a representative panel of 10,000 establishments with over 850,000 employees using the 2005–19 waves of German-linked employer–employee data (LIAB). Two key findings emerge. First, a temporal perspective on workplace policies reveals that no policy under study—formalization, identity-based career programs, and child care assistance—reduces gender pay gaps at hire. Instead, policies only address additional disparities that accumulate after hire. Second, only identity-based career programs narrow gender disparities for all women. In contrast, seemingly gender-neutral formalization is insufficient, while providing employer-sponsored child care has mixed effects depending on employees’ education. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for organizational policy and future research.

Introduction: Mother’s dental health knowledge has a vital role on children's dental health. This study aimed to assess knowledge and practice of mothers in relation to dental health of pre-school children. Subjects and methods: A cross-sectional pre-school based study of 419 mothers of 3-5 years old pre-school children were selected randomly from 20 kindergartens in Khartoum North, Sudan. An interviewer administered questionnaire used to assess the mother’s dental health knowledge and practice in relation to mother’s age, education and occupation. Results: The majority of mothers 394 (94%) age were 20 to 40 years old, 52.7% had university education and 63.7% were housewives. In general, mothers showed good knowledge, the overall mean ± SD knowledge score was 7.22 ± 1.42, while for practice the overall mean ± SD practice score was 41.3 ± 11.8. Significant association found between dental health knowledge and practice and mother’s education level (p = 0.00). Conclusion: Relatively good mother knowledge regarding dental health of preschool children but regrettably this knowledge was not fully reflected on practices. Higher education mothers had better knowledge and practices. The findings of this study emphasize the significant role of mothers in promoting dental health of pre-school children.

To summarize, data on the course of development of mother-infant relations in rhesus monkeys have been presented; a method for teasing apart the relative roles of mother and infant in causing changes or differences in the interaction described; and the complexity of the social nexus, within which the relationship is set, stressed. When the mother is removed for a few days, the infant calls a great deal at first and then shows depressed locomotor and play activity. These symptoms may last for a month after the mother's return. Simple tests given 6 months and even 2 years later strongly suggest that the differences (between infants that have had such a separation experience and infants that have not) are persistent. Are these data relevant to the human case? The rhesus monkey has no verbal language and a much less complex social development than man. Furthermore, its social environment is quite different from that found in any human culture. Parallels between monkey and man must therefore be scrutinized carefully before being used as a basis for generalization. But the facts show that a brief separation experience produces in rhesus monkey infants symptoms that are very similar (except for the apparent absence of a "phase of detachment" on reunion) to those in human infants (25). While age of separation, within the rather narrow limits used here, was a variable of minor importance, the effects of the separation varied, as in the human case, with the length of the separation experience and the sex of the infant. Differences in the techniques of experimenters, as well as differences in the species, prevent precise comparisons of the roles of the mother-infant relationships; nevertheless, the nature of the relationship appears to be an important variable in both monkey and man. There would seem, therefore, to be strong reasons for thinking that we are dealing with comparable phenomena. If that is the case, the fact that monkeys function at a simpler conceptual level than man limits the complexity of the explanatory hypotheses necessary in the human case. In addition, the finding that such a brief separation experience, involving removal of the mother but no exposure to a strange environment, can produce effects lasting for months or years in rhesus monkeys strengthens the evidence that long-term effects may occur also in man. Finally, this analysis provides bases for attempts to predict individual differences in the effects of a period of separation on rhesus infants, and the parallels with man suggest that examination of the same variables in the human case would be worthwhile.

To understand the transition from breast-and bottle-feeding to solid-feeding and factors that might affect the duration of breast- and bottle-feeding. Cohort followed up from birth with relatively well-educated, middle-class parents. Community sample recruited from 3 suburban newborn nurseries (a teaching hospital, community hospital, and large health maintenance organization). One hundred ninety-one healthy full-term infants. Assessment of feeding practices through the ages of complete weaning from breast- and bottle-feeding. More than 90% of participants breast-fed for at least 2 weeks. Infants of older mothers were weaned from the breast later than infants of younger mothers. First-born infants were weaned from the breast earlier than later-born infants. Eighty-four percent of infants bottle-fed at some time during the first year of life. More than 40% of the cohort was still receiving bottles at 24 months of age, 16% at 36 months, and 8% at 48 months. The duration of breast- and bottle-feeding was related to maternal work status; mothers who returned to work during the first 3 months postpartum weaned sooner from the breast and later from the bottle than women who returned to work after 3 months postpartum. The frequency of late bottle-weaning in this well-educated, middle-class cohort was unexpected and was related to the timing of the mother's return to work. The impact of prolonged bottle-feeding on later growth and adiposity deserves further investigation.

Maternity rights and mothers' return to work

Sustaining a safe and sufficient blood supply requires not only recruiting first-time donors but also retaining them over time. In Saudi Arabia, donor retention remains poorly understood, with limited data on return behavior, demographic influences, and temporal trends. This study aims to evaluate patterns of donor return at a tertiary hospital in Saudi Arabia and explore implications for blood supply stability. This is a retrospective observational analysis of 48 241 blood donations by 38 562 unique blood donors at King Fahd Armed Forces Hospital from November 2019 to November 2024. Donors were classified as first-time or repeat donors based on donation frequency. Inter-donation intervals, monthly donation trends, and seasonal influences (Ramadan and Hajj) were assessed using descriptive statistics and chi-square tests. Only 13.2% of donors returned for a subsequent donation, yet these repeat donors contributed 30.6% of all blood units. The average inter-donation interval was 455 days, with 29.2% returning after more than 500 days. Significant seasonal variation was observed in which repeat donation rates declined during Ramadan (27.1%) and Hajj (29.5%) compared to other months (31.0%) (p < 0.0001). Demographically, older age was positively associated with repeat donation, while female participation remained low. Donor retention in Saudi Arabia is low and characterized by wide variability in return timing. These findings underscore the need for structured, behaviorally informed retention strategies. We propose a relationship-centered strategic framework to improve donor engagement, leveraging personalized communication, cultural inclusivity, and temporal targeting to enhance blood supply resilience.

This study analyzes welfare returns for families who leave welfare for a period of 12 months in response to a temporary time limit requirement in Nevada. Findings reveal that relatively few families return for cash assistance after sitting and that the majority who do return soon after their sit-out period is complete. Results also reveal that families with young children, large families, and those with multiple spells before reaching their time limits are at greater risk of re-entry. The study demonstrates the critical role of the economy in shaping welfare re-entry. A simulation exercise estimates that if faced with a high unemployment rate of 14%, nearly 92% of those who leave because of temporary time limits would eventually return to welfare. KEY WORDS: economy and welfare returns; proportional hazard models; welfare temporary time-limits; welfare reform ********** One of the most conspicuous features of 'the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA, EL. 104-193) was the imposition of time limits. This legislation replaced the federal entitlement program Aid to Families with Dependent Children with a block grant for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Presently, the federal government prohibits states from using federal TANF funds for most families for more than 60 cumulative months (Pavetti & Bloom, 2001). Nine states impose a permanent time limit of less than 60 months, and five states impose a temporary period of ineligibility following the receipt of cash benefits ranging from 18 to 36 months (Rowe & Roberts, 2002). Permanent or temporary welfare time limits represent a nonpermissive welfare system and extreme measures taken to curb welfare dependence. Nevada, where the present study took place, imposes a 60-month time limit and requires families to out for 12 months after receiving cash assistance for 24 months. This requirement creates a unique opportunity to examine how welfare returns play after recipients sit for 12 months. Using longitudinal monthly administrative data and a proportional hazard model, this study examined how the economy, welfare benefit levels, and recipients' personal characteristics or behaviors before reaching time limits shape patterns of return after sitting in Nevada. The issue of welfare recidivism takes on greater significance in the wake of welfare reform than it did before PRWORA, in part because welfare recipients are using more of their lifetime benefits after returning to welfare. Yet, only a few studies have examined welfare recidivism after the inception of PRWORA, and to our knowledge the present study is the first one to explain patterns of return to welfare after leaving because of mandatory temporary time limits. The results of this study are interesting not only for what they can tell us about welfare returns under a unique circumstance in a single state, but also because they may serve as a template for similar research in other states. The findings of this investigation have special value for states with temporary time-limited welfare or for states considering such a policy option. The findings have nationwide value and relevance because of general national concerns about longterm self-sufficiency and welfare re-entry. Our study determines the extent to which patterns of re-entry and the effect of explanatory factors on welfare returns resemble similar research conducted in states with no temporary time limits. State flexibility in designing welfare policies or programs in the wake of welfare reform means that researchers need to investigate state-specific programs and that Congress needs to consider state-specific research findings when debating future national welfare reforms. BACKGROUND Return Rates and Patterns Before welfare reform, returns to welfare ranged from 17% to 37% within one year after exit and between 35% and 45% within two years after exit (Bane & Ellwood, 1994; Harris, 1996; Hofferth, Stanhope,& Harris, 2005; Meyer & Cancian, 1996). …

The 1991 General Social Survey of 745 randomly selected workers in the United States assessed the impact of family‐responsive human resource policies, such as parental leave, flexible schedules, and child care assistance on organizational attachment. Employees who had access to family‐responsive policies showed significantly greater organizational committment and expressed significantly lower intention to quit their jobs. Additionally, child care information referral had a greater impact on affective commitment among employees eligible for that benefit. The data supported the theory that offering assistance to employees in need symbolizes concern for employees and positively influences attachment to the organization. The contrasting theoretical explanation–that people are more attached to companies when they individually benefit from progressive human resource policies–received considerably less support. The practical implication of the study for human resource management professionals is that providing comprehensive family‐friendly policies may have a positive impact beyond the individual employees who tap these benefits.

All valuation models in some way take into account the effects of timing and pattern of investment return on value. Most of the models implicitly or explicitly have an infinite or, at least a relatively long future projection horizon. A seemingly innocuous assumption common to most models is that future cash flow growth will follow a consistent growth pattern. This article considers the impact of cyclicality on typical business valuations. The analysis demonstrates that though cyclicality can dramatically impact forecast cash flows over time, attempting to integrate its impacts into a valuation results in higher expected errors.

This paper investigates the role that children play in the migration decisions of Chinese women. The presence of children of various ages is hypothesized to affect the timing of migration, the length of migration, and the nature of migration in terms of who goes along. In addition, we also investigate whether the sex of the children affects migration decisions. Results indicate that whether one's husband ever migrated has a positive effect on migrating before childbirth. Return timing is strongly linked to the age of the child. Many mothers return to rural areas around the time that the child begins formal schooling. We also find that women who have given birth to a boy are significantly less likely to migrate after childbirth but more likely to take the boy with her if she does migrate.