CPRC

Past Research: Professor Han has extensive research experience in the area of child care, maternal employment, and child well-being. She has particularly focused on differences between single-mother and married-mother families and has found that the negative effects of child care costs on women’s labor market activity are substantially larger for unmarried mothers than for married mothers. This result is important because unmarried mothers are more likely to be in low-income families; to the extent that such mothers are particularly sensitive to the price-related dimensions of child care, they may be less likely to find affordable and high-quality child care and hence less likely to return to work following childbirth, particularly given the work requirements on mothers with young children after the 1996 welfare reform. Han also has conducted research on the impact of the 1996 welfare reform law on low-income single mothers’ economic well-being in New York. In addition, she has conducted research on inter-generational transfers, examining the impact of families’ resource allocation on children’s educational outcomes in an international perspective.

Present Research: Han and colleagues are currently analyzing data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and the NICHD Early Child Care Research Network to examine the effects of first-year maternal employment on children’s later cognitive and behavioral outcomes, including potential mechanisms such as the home environment and the quality and type of out-of-home care that children receive. In addition, Han (with Waldfogel) has examined the effects of the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act, using data from the SIPP and CPS, on whether and for how long mothers and fathers use parental leave surrounding the birth of a newborn. Also, Han (with Waldfogel and Christopher Ruhm) is currently using 15 years of CPS data to examine how family leave policies affect parents’ leave-taking and employment, and they will continue this line of this research to evaluate how leave-taking may be linked with child cognitive and behavioral outcomes. Han is also conducting research to evaluate the associations between parents’ work schedules and the arrangements they make to care for their children and child well-being, especially vis-à-vis nonstandard work schedules. Also, Han is conducting research on the developmental experiences of children in immigrant families. She is collaborating with Andrew Fuligni (University of California, Los Angeles) to examine the cognitive and behavioral outcomes of immigrant adolescents using data from the NLSY, and she has obtained funding from the Foundation for Child Development to examine outcomes for immigrant children using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey-Kindergarten cohort.

Future Research: Han’s future plans include continuing research in four areas: 1) examining the effects of early maternal employment on children’s later cognitive and behavioral outcomes (with Waldfogel and Brooks-Gunn), 2) evaluating the effects of family leave policies on parents’ leaving-taking and children’s later cognitive outcomes (with Waldfogel and Chris Ruhm), 3) utilizing several national and longitudinal data sets to examine the links between parental work schedules and child development, and 4) conducting more fine-grained analyses to disentangle the ways that familial and social factors intersect in shaping families, and especially, children's experiences in immigrant families.

Professor Han's Departmental Biography Page