“Working moms have more successful daughters and more caring sons”

The Harvard Business School study was based on national-level data, as well as individual-level survey data collected across 24 countries by the International Social Survey Programme in 2002 and 2012. In particular, the researchers examined results from a survey question that asked respondents whether, during their childhood, their mother had ever spent a year or more working full- or part-time; then they regressed these responses against a host of variables to test the outcomes.

McGinn says that the effects of working mothers were most striking in countries labeled in the study as “stagnating moderates,” a category that included both the US and the UK. These are countries where respondents generally held moderate views about gender issues and egalitarianism in 2002, and where the attitudes remained roughly the same 10 years later.

McGinn says that the income of daughters of working mothers in the US was $5,200 higher than that of daughters of women who stayed at home, when controlling for gender attitudes.

Her message for working mothers is that being employed has long-lasting, positive effects on children. “When you go to work, you are helping your children understand that there are lots of opportunities for them,” McGinn says.

Source: Quartz