Lauren Rich, Principal Investigator
2009

Although U.S. antipoverty policies focus increasingly on encouraging low-income mothers to work, there is little research on the impact of mothers’ employment, and self-employment in particular, on their children. Strategies to help these mothers achieve self-sufficiency and balance work and caregiving responsibilities are needed. Self-employment represents one potential strategy, and microenterprise programs to encourage self-employment among low-income individuals have proliferated in the past few decades. There is growing recognition that we need a better understanding of the consequences of self-employment for low-income women and their children, and that this knowledge must be communicated to those seeking to improve the well-being of low-income families.

Using data from the Fragile Families Study and the American Time Use Survey, Chapin Hall researchers are examining the prevalence and determinants of self-employment among urban, low-income mothers. Researchers are also investigating the potential effects of engagement in such work for mothers’ earnings, their involvement with their children, and their children’s behavioral and cognitive outcomes. Key questions include: (1) What proportion of urban, low-income mothers identify themselves as self-employed, either as a primary or secondary job? (2) How do the earnings and household incomes of the self-employed differ from the wages and salaries of the employed? (3) How do parental involvement, levels of parental stress, flexibility of working hours, ability to combine time spent in work and childcare, and use of childcare services differ between self-employed women and those in wage/salary jobs? (4) How does the behavioral and cognitive development of children whose mothers are self-employed compare to that of children whose mothers are employed in the wage/salary sector?