The impact of having a child with special needs: Labour market adaptations of immigrant and majority mothers
Journal article, Peer reviewed
Published version
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https://hdl.handle.net/10642/9575Utgivelsesdato
2020-11-26Metadata
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Originalversjon
Reisel L, Nadim M, Brekke I. The impact of having a child with special needs: Labour market adaptations of immigrant and majority mothers. Acta Sociologica. 2020 https://doi.org/10.1177/0001699320971695Sammendrag
This article compares how having a child with special needs shapes the labour market adaptations
of immigrant and majority mothers. We use longitudinal data from Norwegian public registers
including all women who gave birth between 2001 and 2005 (N¼104,988), and follow the mothers
from two years before birth to four years after birth. We find generally large differences in
employment and income among immigrant and majority mothers. Majority mothers typically adapt
to the intensified care responsibilities associated with having a child with special needs by working
somewhat less, but most importantly by combining work with high levels of long-term sickness
absence. By contrast, immigrant mothers substantially reduce their work intensity (as measured
through labour earnings) after childbirth regardless of whether their child has special needs.
Among immigrant mothers whose child has special needs, we do not find elevated sickness absence
levels comparable to that of majority mothers. Given the already reduced work intensity among
immigrant mothers in the years following the birth of their child, we do not find additional labour
market consequences of intensified care responsibilities within this group of mothers.