Employment Patterns of Mothers with a Disabled Young Person

This paper investigates the effect of caring for a disabled teenager or young adult on mothers' employment patterns. Cross-sectional data on over 900 mothers of a nationally representative sample of young people were obtained by personal interview in early 1987. The sample was stratified between mothers with and without a disabled young person. The mothers of severely disabled young people were less than half as likely as their counterparts in the general population to be in paid work, after controlling for age, family size, and their partners' economic activity. Mothers with a less than severely disabled young person were just as likely to be working as mothers in the general population. There was no evidence that mothers with a disabled young person were limited to part-time, lower-paid jobs. These findings help to reconcile some of the discrepancies apparent in previous research. They also have important implications for the living standards of families with a disabled teenager and for the role of social security provision for informal carers.