Does Maternal Employment Impair Child Growth? Evidence from Indonesia

Due to time constraints, mothers’ working may influence their child’s growth positively or negatively. However, previous studies have shown that the net effect remains varied. This study expands the limited literature in Indonesia, utilizing the last three waves of the IFLS as primary data by exploring maternal working status in the present and past, specifically during the child’s critical window, to see whether the results diverge. We overcome the potential endogeneity in mothers’ working status by using the number of small industries and cluster average of women’s employment rate in the subdistrict as instruments. Results show that the present working status does not affect the child’s growth. However, pregnant mothers’ employment has adverse effects on their children. Moreover, the detrimental impact of past working status also occurs in rural areas and, interestingly, in the upper 60% of households. This confirms that the effect does differ in each time frame.