Effect of Maternal Employment on Nutritional Status of Children in Faisalabad City

Abstract

For the overall personality development of children, receiving care and attention from their parents is crucial. Mothers play a crucial role in a child's upbringing and nutritional status. Employed women face many challenges in society, including multitasking. They are obliged to balance their job with household responsibilities and childcare. This study analyzed the impact of a mother’s employment status on the nutritional status of children under five years in the district Faisalabad of Punjab Province of Pakistan. The respondents included in this study were between 15-49 years mothers. A multi-stage probability sampling was used, where the first step involved the selection of five towns. In the second step, 218 respondents were selected. Respondents from each town were selected in proportion to the population of the town. A well-structured questionnaire comprising both open and close-ended questions was used to collect data. Children were assessed using anthropometric measures to see if they were underweight, wasted, or stunted and to evaluate a person's weight for height, weight for age, and height for age. Results revealed that children of working mothers had healthy body weight (BMI within the 5th percentile to 85th percentile) compared to mothers who do not work, i.e., 43.1 and 27.5 percent, respectively. Almost one-fifth of working mother’s children were underweight, which is the lowest ratio compared to children of non-working mothers, i.e., 37.6 percent. 6.4 percent of mothers with working children were overweight, which is higher than 2.8 percent of mothers without jobs. Children with working mothers made up 29.4 percent of the population, and children with jobless mothers made up 17.4 percent. Logistic regression was used to analyze the data. A significant association was found between the mother's employment and the nutritional wellbeing of a child. At a 95 percent confidence interval, mother's age was statistically significant (p = 0.028) and its Wald statistics was 4.84 with 1 degree of freedom. The odds ratio, i.e., Exp (B), is 0.935, and regression coefficient B of Mage (Mother Age) is-0.067which reduces the likelihood of children’s nutritional status to 6.5 percent. Duration of breastfeeding (DBF) is significant (p 0.05) at a 95 percent confidence of interval, and its Wald statistics is 16.233 at 1 df. The regression coefficient DBF is 0.137, showing an increase in the nutritional status of children.