Maternal Employment and Childhood Obesity: A Search for Mechanisms in Time Use Data / John Cawley, Feng Liu.

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Cawley, John

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Material type: Text

TextSeries: Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. w13600.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2007.Description: 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white)Subject(s):

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Abstract: Recent research has found that maternal employment is associated with an increased risk of childhood obesity. This paper explores mechanisms for that correlation. We estimate models of instrumental variables using a unique dataset, the American Time Use Survey, that measure the effect of maternal employment on the mother's allocation of time to activities related to child diet and physical activity. We find that employed women spend significantly less time cooking, eating with their children, and playing with their children, and are more likely to purchase prepared foods. We find suggestive evidence that these decreases in time are only partly offset by husbands and partners. These findings offer plausible mechanisms for the association of maternal employment with childhood obesity.

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Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Working Paper	Biblioteca Digital	Colección NBER	nber w13600 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan

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November 2007.

Recent research has found that maternal employment is associated with an increased risk of childhood obesity. This paper explores mechanisms for that correlation. We estimate models of instrumental variables using a unique dataset, the American Time Use Survey, that measure the effect of maternal employment on the mother's allocation of time to activities related to child diet and physical activity. We find that employed women spend significantly less time cooking, eating with their children, and playing with their children, and are more likely to purchase prepared foods. We find suggestive evidence that these decreases in time are only partly offset by husbands and partners. These findings offer plausible mechanisms for the association of maternal employment with childhood obesity.