Homemaking Mothers and Their Children: Maternal Labour Force Participation and its Relation to Labour Market Outcomes in Sweden

Sammanfattning: This study examines whether differences in working hours, earnings, education, and family formation among Swedish children born in the 1950s is related to maternal labour force participation. In contrast to empirical evidence within this field from other countries, the results indicate that maternal labour force participation plays little role for labour market success in Sweden. However, we find that children of homemakers have significantly better elementary school grades than those of working mothers, controlling for socioeconomic background. We also find that daughters of homemakers score better on a standardised test from grade six. The better scholastic performance among homemakers' children can be explained by homemakers being able to spend more time helping their children than working mothers.