Maternal Occupation-Specific Skills and Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Child Development in Germany

This study examines the link between maternal occupation-specific skills and child development following mothers’ return to work. We draw on the long-running Newborn Starting Cohort from the German National Education Panel Study, linked with administrative records on mothers’ employment biographies (NEPS-SC1-ADIAB, 2012-2021) and expert-coded occupational task data. Extending previous research providing mixed findings on mathematical and verbal competencies after age 5, we examine cognitive and non-cognitive child development between ages three and nine. Results from OLS-models show small but statistically significant associations between mothers’ highly specialised, analytical job skills and children’s vocabulary scores, while links with math, science, and socio-emotional behaviour were modest. Other types of job tasks showed only small associations with any child outcome. Additional fixed-effects models provide little support that changes in maternal occupations influence child development. Overall, our findings suggest a limited role of occupation-specific skills in the intergenerational transmission of educational inequalities.