Publications [#345959] of Lisa A. Gennetian

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Journal Articles

  1. Gennetian, LA; Hill, HD; London, AS; Lopoo, LM. "Maternal employment and the health of low-income young children.." Journal of health economics 29.3 (May, 2010): 353-363. [doi]
    (last updated on 2026/01/19)

    Abstract:
    This study examines whether maternal employment affects the health status of low-income, elementary-school-aged children using instrumental variables estimation and experimental data from a welfare-to-work program implemented in the early 1990s. Maternal report of child health status is predicted as a function of exogenous variation in maternal employment associated with random assignment to the experimental group. IV estimates show a modest adverse effect of maternal employment on children's health. Making use of data from another welfare-to-work program we propose that any adverse effect on child health may be tempered by increased family income and access to public health insurance coverage, findings with direct relevance to a number of current policy discussions. In a secondary analysis using fixed effects techniques on longitudinal survey data collected in 1998 and 2001, we find a comparable adverse effect of maternal employment on child health that supports the external validity of our primary result.

Lisa A. Gennetian

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