This study exploits plausibly exogenous variation derived from the youngest sibling’s school eligibility to estimate the effects of maternal work on the weight outcomes of older children. We first show that mothers’ work hours increase gradually along both the extensive and intensive margins as the age of the youngest child rises, whereas mothers’ spouses’ work hours do not appear to be responsive. We develop an instrumental-variables model that shows that mothers’ work hours lead to larger increases in children’s body mass index z-scores and probabilities of being overweight/obese than those identified in previous studies. Subsample analyses find that the effects are concentrated among advantaged households.

中文翻译：

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产妇工作时间和儿童肥胖：使用与兄弟学校入学条件相关的工具变量的证据

这项研究利用了从最小的兄弟姐妹的学校资格中得出的合理的外源性变异来估算孕产妇工作对年长儿童体重结局的影响。我们首先表明，随着最小儿童年龄的增长，母亲的工作时间随着广泛和密集的边缘而逐渐增加，而母亲的配偶的工作时间似乎并没有反应。我们开发了一个工具变量模型，该模型表明母亲的工作时间导致儿童的身体质量指数z得分和超重/肥胖的可能性比以前的研究更大地增加。子样本分析发现，影响集中在优势家庭中。