Why maternity leave is important

As a result, the child displays clinginess, feels too insecure to explore the world freely, and is unable to use the caregiver as a secure base.

These behaviors result in problematic and insecure relationships later in life Bowlby ; Sherman et al. Attachment security has been found to predict positive developmental outcomes, such as, pro-social behaviors, competence with peers, social skills, and empathy Lamb et al.

On the other hand, meta-analysis studies found that attachment insecurity predicts internalizing behaviors in early childhood Madigan et al. The first months of life are key to the development of secure attachments Bowlby Attachments begin to form from birth, they are established by the ninth month of life, and by 12—14 months, they are finalized.

Once attachments are formed, they remain relatively stable through childhood Gloger-Tippelt et al. The belief in a critical stage for infants to form a bond with their mothers has been controversial. Yet, research has shown that there are underlying biological processes that cause certain bonding behaviors to emerge with more intensity during the post-partum period Jansen et al.

During labor and the post-partum period, a woman releases the hormone oxytocin. This hormone has been shown to affect maternal caregiving behavior and pair bonding Feldman et al. Associations between levels of oxytocin released in the human mother and the quality of mother child interactions have been found consistently e.

Policies that address issues such as the duration of maternity leaves have the potential to facilitate time for mothers and infants to spend together and to develop secure attachments.

Few studies explored the link between length of maternity leave and mother—child interactions or attachment. Feldman and colleagues compared a group of mothers who took maternity leaves longer than 12 weeks to a group of mothers who took maternity leaves shorter than 12 weeks. The authors found than women in the long leaves group had better understanding of child development, had higher levels of preoccupation with their infant, and reported that motherhood had a better impact on their self-esteem and their marriage.

In addition, longer maternity leaves were related to better job adaptation. However, this study included a sample of married higher socio-economic status women and did not include observations of mother—child interactions. Clark and colleagues found that shorter leaves resulted in lower levels of maternal sensitivity and increased negative affect during interactions with the child.

This study included a sample of married working mothers of middle income status and used video-taped mother—child interactions when the infants turned 4 months. This study controlled for infant gender, birth order, employment location in or out of the home , breastfeeding, and maternal education. However, this study did not include any measures or observations of infant level well-being or development.

One study found a link between maternity leave and attachment. In a nationally representative sample, when comparing ambivalent and non-ambivalent infants, infants were more likely to be classified in the ambivalent category when the mothers did not take maternity leave Pisciella Ambivalent attachment refers to infants who are insecurely attached, exhibit separation anxiety, are unable to use the caregiver as a secure base, and develop internal working models of ambivalence towards attachment figures, because caregivers are usually inconsistent and unpredictable Bowlby This study gives evidence to the links between maternity leave and attachment security.

However, this study did not look at the indirect effects of length of maternity leave and at the role of quality of mother—child interactions. Socio-economic status SES plays an important role in the ways mothers take maternity leave. Second, for mothers who are covered, the ability to take advantage of this unpaid leave is highly related to SES and her ability to afford time away from work.

Similarly, the likelihood of the leave being paid is related to SES, as higher paying jobs are more likely to offer a paid leave Human Rights Watch Thus, SES can affect the timing of the mother returning to work and the quality of the home environment as well as the income of the family and the experience of poverty during infancy. Extensive research has supported the association between socio-economic status and mother—child interactions e. For example, parents in poverty reported feeling less effective as parents and had been observed to be less affectionate with their children.

Similarly, poverty increases the risk of authoritarian parenting and harsh discipline Gibson-Davis and Gassman-Pines In sum, maternity leave, mother—child interactions, and SES are intertwined in many ways, and the study of the effects of length of maternity leave needs to take into account SES.

Length of maternity leave varies greatly among American mothers and the effects of length of maternity leave on mother—child interactions and attachment have not been extensively studied.

The present study had three goals. First, this study explored the direct effects of the length of maternity leave among working mothers on the quality of mother—child interactions.

Second, this study assessed the direct effects of mother—child interactions on attachment security and attachment dependency. Third, this study explored whether length of maternity leave indirectly affected the levels of attachment security by affecting the quality of mother—child interactions. Three hypotheses were proposed. Hypothesis 1 predicted that longer maternity leaves would be associated with higher levels of mother—child interactions.

Hypothesis 2 anticipated that higher levels of quality mother—child interactions would be associated with higher levels of attachment security and lower levels of attachment dependency. Hypothesis 3 predicted that longer maternity leaves would be associated with higher levels of quality mother—child interactions, which in turn would be associated with higher levels of attachment security and lower levels of attachment dependency. The present study analyzed data from the first two waves of data collection and collected when children turned 9 months and 2 years of age.

When children were 9 months, mothers were interviewed, and children and mothers were observed in different tasks. Similarly, children were assessed and mothers were interviewed at 2 years of age.

Our analytic sample was restricted to working mothers who responded to the question regarding length of their maternity leave, and had a non-missing value on the ECLS-B base weight W2C0. This weight was applied to children whose parents participated in both waves of date collection. Selecting cases with a valid value of W2C0 for working mothers yielded a sample size of approximately When the data are analyzed using these weights, the results are representative of all children born in the U.

At the 9-month parent interview, mothers were asked if they were employed, working for pay, as of the past week. This measure was used to identify the sample of working mothers included in the study. During the 9-month interview, mothers who indicated they took maternity leave were asked to specify the duration of their leave.

This leave can typically include some weeks before the birth of a child. Mothers were also asked how old in weeks their child was when they returned to work. This question was a better indicator of length of leave for the present study, because it addressed the number of weeks after delivery that a mother was potentially able to spend with her child before returning to work. Therefore, the age of the child in weeks when a mother returned to work was used to measure length of leave.

The NCATS consisted of asking the mother to teach the child a task that is slightly beyond his or her abilities, which created a certain amount of distress. Trained observers paid attention to the quality of the interactions and the level of responsiveness between mother and child rather than on success in the task. There were 73 items, and observers indicated whether a behavior was observed or not during the task.

Examples of these items are whether the mother was face to face during the task and whether children displayed disengagement. The scale comprised four maternal behavior subscales, including sensitivity to cues, response to distress, socio-emotional growth fostering, and cognitive growth fostering. In addition, there were two infant behavior subscales, including clarity of cues and responsiveness to caregiver. Responses were summed for each subscale, and total scores for parent, child, and dyad were calculated with higher scores indicating more positive mother—child interactions.

Test—retest reliability is. The dyad total score had a reliability of. Two dimensions of attachment were measured: attachment security and attachment dependency. The Toddler Attachment Sort TAS was used to measure attachment quality during the home visit when the child was 2 years of age. The observer sorts the cards into piles reflecting whether a behavior was highly characteristic, characteristic, somewhat characteristic, somewhat uncharacteristic, or highly uncharacteristic of the child.

These scores are traditionally obtained by researchers using the AQS following the guidelines of Waters and Deane The dependency score is an indication of clinginess to the parent, attention-seeking, and distress by separation. The two most common assessments of attachment are the Strange Situation Ainsworth et al. The advantages of the TAS include home observations, the availability of continuous scores that account for individual differences, and its applicability in a range of countries and cultures Posada et al.

Validity of the TAS as a measure of toddler-parent attachment has been reported by Spieker et al. The TAS Security score was associated with more dyadic mutuality, higher language and competence scores, and lower problem scores.

Discriminant validity was evidenced by a lack of associations with the TAS Dependency score and Security scores Spieker et al. The TAS was used by several large-scale studies. For example, the TAS was used to examine the associations between food security during infancy and subsequent attachment behaviors in toddlerhood and the associations between attachment security and child obesity Anderson and Whitaker ; Zaslow et al.

ECLS-B researchers computed a composite variable for socio-economic status from five components including both maternal and paternal education, maternal and paternal occupation, and income. The SES score is an average of these five components after they were standardized Flanagan and West This study consisted of secondary data analysis of the ECLS-B collected when the children were 9 months and 2 years of age.

The families were selected using birth certificates, and they were recruited using the information available in the birth certificates. Children were sampled by occurrence of birth within a set of primary sampling units defined by counties or county groups. Mothers and children were visited at home at both times, and these visits included the observations of mother—child interactions at 9 months and completion of the attachment Q-sort at 2 years.

Trained staff video-taped mother—child interactions during the home visits. In addition, a parent interview was administered, which included all the questions related to maternal employment, maternity leave, and socio-biographic variables when the children were 9 months National Center for Education Statistics All participants consented to participate in this study.

The three hypotheses of the study proposing direct and indirect effects of length of maternity leave on attachment were estimated by path analysis of the analytical model presented in Fig.

Path analysis is a subset of SEM Ullman and Bentler , and is used to examine relationships between two or more variables. It is based upon a linear equation system, and is used mainly in the attempt to understand comparative strengths of direct and indirect relationships among a set of variables Chou and Bentler In this way, path analysis is an appropriate answer to our research questions, since in path analysis, mediated pathways or indirect effects can be examined Ullman and Bentler Furthermore, path analysis was chosen, because it assesses the relationships among measured variables, which is the case of the variables in the present study Chou and Bentler Following the approach of Kenny , the presence of significant indirect effects in path models was considered a mediation effect.

This approach is widely recommended in mediation research MacKinnon et al. The model was tested using standardized coefficients obtained with maximum-likelihood method of estimation. The maximum-likelihood method has shown to be a state-of-the-art technique for dealing with missing data, highly recommended by researchers Schafer and Graham , and is robust to non-normality in structural equation modeling Enders In addition, the jackknife resampling procedure was used to estimate coefficients.

This procedure was recommended by ECLS-B researchers as an effective way of calculating path coefficients. Similarly, this procedure was recommended by researchers comparing it to other replication methods when testing them using the same data set Stapleton These indices were chosen because of the need to use replicate weights for the analysis, as indicated by ECLS-B researchers.

When these weights are included in the analysis, obtaining non-parametric fit indices, such as Chi squares, is not possible. Similarly, models with SRMR values smaller than. The descriptive statistics are presented in Table 2. The SRMR value was. Figure 2 illustrates the direct significant paths found, and Table 3 presents the decomposition of effects.

Significant direct paths between length of maternity leave, mother—child interactions, and attachment. Hypothesis 1 explored the relationship between length of maternity leave and mother—child interactions. The second hypothesis explored the relationship between mother—child interactions and attachment. The third hypothesis explored an indirect effect of length of maternity leave on attachment security through the effects of mother—child interactions.

Following the recommendations of Stage et al. The authors propose that an effect smaller than. The effect sizes in this study were regarded as small. The only exceptions were the effects of SES on quality of mother—child interactions, which were viewed as large. Effect sizes need to be interpreted in context; effects sizes in similar studies such as the child care studies were all considered small McCarthney and Rosenthal Maternity leaves constitute a basic form of support for families immediately after the birth of a child.

The goal of this study was to look at the role of length of maternity leave of working women in the U. One of the main findings of this study was that length of maternity leave had a direct effect on the quality of mother—child interactions. This finding is of significance, because the quality of interactions is established early in life and remains stable from infancy to middle childhood e. Similarly, quality of mother—child interactions during infancy has been shown to predict secure attachments De Wolff and van IJzendoorn , levels of empathy Feldman , and academic success later in life Gregory and Rimm-Kaufman The significant effect found between length of maternity leave and quality of mother—child interactions is consistent with the finding of Clark and colleagues that shorter maternity leaves result in more negative mother—child interaction.

The findings of the present study support what has been argued by many developmentalists e. Overall, this body of work indicates that the mother—child interactions are sensitive to the amount of time a mother has to get to know her child before she returns to work. These results should inform the development of policies that support the needs of infants and working mothers. Another important result of this study was that the effect of the length of maternity leave on attachment was mediated by the quality of mother—child interactions.

This finding is significant because of the central role of attachment in child development e. Length of maternity leave has played an important role in supporting the development of secure attachments because of its effect on the quality of mother—child interactions. The results bring new light on an enduring research issue, namely the relationship between non-maternal child care in the months of life and attachment. The results of this study confirm that the influence of length of maternity leave on child attachment is observed when taking into account the role of dyadic mother—child interactions.

The results also confirm that maternity leave policies might be an appropriate way of addressing the need for infants to develop secure attachments. An important limitation of the present study is the issue of causality.

It is possible that mothers who are more likely to develop higher levels of quality in their interactions are choosing to take longer leaves. Similarly, although this study controlled for the effects of SES, the duration of maternity leaves in the U. The use of a nationally representative sample is ideal when making policy recommendations. Yet, some limitations stem from the use of secondary data analysis as some variables of interest, such as maternal individual preferences, were not included in the survey.

Similarly, father—child interactions were not assessed in this sample. It is left for further research to include the role of fathers. Starting with Sweden, a few countries in the world have developed paternity leave policies Human Rights Watch In some cases, paternity leave constitutes a form of child care when the mother returns to work.

Further study can assess if longer leaves resulting from a combination of maternal and paternal leaves predict higher levels of father—child interactions and higher level of involvement of fathers with their children later in life.

The results of this study have several implications for policy affecting mothers and their infants, including implications for maternity leave coverage, length, and compensation.

The findings indicate that the length of maternity leave had a direct impact on the quality of mother—child interactions and an indirect impact on attachment. One policy recommendation is expanding the FMLA policy to cover more workers, including those employed in companies with a workforce of less than 50 employees. In this way, a larger number of infants might be able to benefit from spending more time with their mothers during the first weeks of life.

Since developing quality interactions and forming attachments is a universal need of infants, a universal policy will best address the needs of working American families. These findings should also inform policy regarding the length of leave provided. Although the average leave in the U. A policy that ensures a length of leave needs also to address the need for some leave to be paid. Longer unpaid leave might not result in longer maternity leaves due to the loss of income associated with an unpaid leave during the months following childbirth.

These circumstances can be highly stressful for mothers and families. Implementing some form of paid leave has been controversial in the U. Yet, examples of state-level policies show that implementing some compensation for maternity leave does not have to be costly and that this cost does not have to be carried by employers Zigler and Hall Studies analyzing the effect of paid leave in the State of California have shown that paid leave has extended the average leave per women by 4—6 weeks, even longer in the case of low SES working mothers Guendelman et al.

Similarly, in , Rhode Island adopted a paid leave policy, and public savings were reported in medical costs and unemployment Mejeur and Poppe These examples point at the feasibility of implementing a paid policy that assures mothers can take spend time with their infants without experiencing the strain of complete income loss. The results of this study suggest that federal policies should follow the example of states and insure all American infants have similar opportunities.

Using a nationally representative sample with a longitudinal design, this study found that there is a direct effect between length of maternity leave and the quality of mother—child interactions, and an indirect effect between the length of maternity leave and attachment. These results add to the body of literature that should inform policies to support the role of parenting in infant development, and to address the needs of infants during their first months of life.

The implementation of comprehensive and universal maternity leave policy can complement child care policies. Both quality child care and maternity leave policies constitute solutions to similar needs. The results of this study support the need for parents to have the opportunity to choose to take maternity before infants enter child care. While quality child care can results in positive developmental outcomes for the infants, maternity leave can ensure that mothers have time off from work.

Ultimately, a combination of comprehensive maternity leave and child care policies will give each family the opportunity to have some choice in timing and combination of work, leave, and child care. Ainsworth, M. Patterns of attachment: A psychological study of the strange situation.

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Social Policy Report, 15, 3— Early childhood education and care: International perspectives. Kenny, D. Accessed 11 April Klebanov, P. For the future, this means policy makers need to pay careful attention to design better policies that allow families to parent their children while working. Eichner suggests that some of these initiatives should: 1.

Allowing families to thrive means a comprehensive approach to parenting and work, with increased public and private investment. This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here. More From Forbes. Nov 11, , am EST. Nov 10, , pm EST. Nov 10, , am EST. Edit Story. Dec 15, , am EST.