Women’s Paid Labor Force Participation and Child Immunization: A Multilevel Model

Kali-Ahset Amen, University of Maryland

Literature on the effect of women’s work on child health often explains variations in the effect of work by characteristics of employment that influence the income/time trade-off. Effects of women’s labor force participation at the community level have not been previously estimated, and we believe that some of the variation in outcomes associated with work may depend on how normative work is in women’s communities. Moreover, we suspect that the benefits from maternal work may be underestimated where community-level effects are ignored: women’s mobility and information passed through work-based social networks may contribute to good health practices for everyone in the community, not just children of the working. We estimate the effect of women’s cash work on child immunization in 30 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America using a multi-level fixed-effects model to test these hypotheses.