Children's Education Attainment: The Effects of Mothers' Working on the Children's Golden Age Period

摘要

Using the household production function approach, mother's employment during the golden age period may entail a negative time effect and a positive income effect on the child's quality, of which the net effect is ambiguous and thus may become a source of dilemma for the family. Empirical studies on this issue in Indonesia are still limited. This study conducted an empirical investigation on whether mother's employment when the child was in the golden age (i.e., 0-5 years old) would influence the child's education attainment in Indonesia. Employing the longitudinal data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) of the 1993-2007 period, the study constructed several children sub-sample whose education outcome were observed in the 2007 IFLS; and the mothers' working hours were reported in the IFLS of the previous years. It was found a significant positive impact of mothers' working hours to the children's probabilities of finishing the elementary school, continuing to junior high school, and finishing the junior high school The results were robust when the nearest distance to school was included to control the supply-side factor. These empirical results show that mothers' decision to work during the children's golden age may have generated a substantial income effect greater than the time effect.