Maternal Employment and Child Malnutrition in Ecuador.

Overall, our findings suggest that the additional income that a working mother may obtain (the income effect) does not offset the loss of time available for direct childcare (the time constraint) in terms of child health status, and this effect is even more apparent for more affluent and more educated mothers. Government interventions, including effective conditional cash transfers and/or in-kind family policies, intended to reduce the cost of raising children among vulnerable families appear to be aligned with our findings.