1st Edition

The Impact of Parental Employment Young People, Well-Being and Educational Achievement

By Linda Cusworth Copyright 2009

    In this groundbreaking study, Linda Cusworth explores the impact of parental employment or unemployment on the educational and emotional well-being of their children. Using theoretical apparatus from Bourdieu and data from the youth survey of the British Household Panel Study, the research in this book analyzes the impact of parental employment on those born between 1978 and 1990. This study is unique in going beyond the educational achievement and later patterns of employment of the young people studied to look at the whole of children's lives, including their attitudes and aspirations, relationships and emotional well-being. The changed norms of maternal employment and the substantial increase in lone parenthood over the last few decades make this an especially important study both for academics in social and public policy and sociology, and for policy makers.

    Contents: Introduction; Parental employment and children's outcomes; Methodology; Emotional well-being; Educational well-being: behaviour and attitudes; Educational well-being: attainment and progression; Conclusions; Bibliography; Appendices; Index.

    Biography

    Linda Cusworth is Research Fellow in the Social Policy Research Unit at the University of York, UK.

    'This is a useful book for those who seek a current account of how parental work, family structure and family process affect adolescent emotional and educational outcomes in Great Britain. ... The work is also helpful because it considers both maternal and paternal work effects on adolescent outcomes, an even-handed approach that not every analysis can claim... readers who investigate parental work and family effects on adolescent outcomes either in Great Britain or in comparative perspective will find the work to be of interest.' Contemporary Sociology