An Empirical Analysis of the Effect of Maternal Employment on Children Obesity and Adolescent Risky Behavior

• Main Authors: Wan-Ting Zeng, 曾婉婷
• Other Authors: Shao-Hsun Keng
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/07238418315201481405

碩士 === 國立高雄大學 === 應用經濟學系碩士班 === 98 === The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of maternal employment on child obesity and adolescent risky behavior. Child obesity in Taiwan has increased significantly over the years. At the same time, we also observe that smoking, drinking, betel nut chewing, and use of illicit drug among adolescents are on the rise. There are many factors that affect child obesity, as well as adolescents engaging in risky behavior. This study examines whether maternal employ is a main factor that is responsible for child obesity and adolescent risky behavior using data from the NHIS (2001). We use the bivariate probit model to examine the impact of maternal employment on children obesity and adolescent engage in risky behavior. To avoid bias due to correlation between maternal employment and unobserved variables, we use instrumental variables method. The instruments we use to predict maternal employment are child care costs and county unemployment rate. We find that maternal employment has negative effect on child obesity, and positive effect on the probability of adolescents engage in risky behavior, but the effect is not significant.