How does maternal employment affect children's socioemotional functioning?

Abstract

The maternal employment becomes an irreversible trend across the globe. The effect of maternal employment on children's socioemotional functioning is so pervasive that it warrants special attention to investigate into the issue. A trajectory of analytical framework of how maternal employment affects children's socioemotional functioning originates from the negative maternal deprivation perspective and evolves into the neutral perspective of family adaptation. As the previous perspectives take negative stance and emphasize the roles of mothers exclusively, the paper proposes a contemporaneous socio-psychological dual-track model by taking into consideration the marriage dynamics measured in terms of compatibility between gender equity across individual-oriented and family-oriented institutions which in turn affects the marital satisfaction, parenting and children's socioemotional functioning.