Maternal Employment and its Relationship to Childhood Obesity in Russia (based on RLMS Data)

Recent studies strongly suggest a positive relationship between maternal employment and overweight children in different countries. However, a similar study has not yet been conducted on Russian data. The aim of this work is to study the possible effects of maternal employment on childhood obesity. In the literature it is proved that the time of absence of the mother is important for the state of health of the child. Representative data of the HSE RLMS for the regions were used for the period from 2000 to 2018. The empirical part of the study uses models with random effects. The results show a significant positive relationship between mother’s full-time employment and the likelihood of childhood obesity. Subgroup analysis suggests that this effect is due to low socio-economic groups. In addition, the effect of maternal employment was observed in children 0–7 years old, while for children 8–18, this effect was not observed.