Job quality matters: Understanding how the quality of parental employment shapes children’s mental health and development
Dr. Faraz Vahid Shahidi is an Associate Scientist at the Institute for Work & Health and an Assistant Professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. Dr. Anne Fuller is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at McMaster University and a Pediatrician at McMaster Children’s Hospital. Together with a team of researchers, they are investigating how parental employment quality influences child health and development. Supported by the Edwin S.H. Leong Centre for Healthy Children, their research suggests that not all jobs are created equal, and that the terms and conditions of parental employment are key to understanding the outcomes of children and youth.
Socioeconomic conditions play an important role in early life, shaping the extent of resources and opportunities available to children. Early life socioeconomic circumstances are in large part determined by the quality of parental employment, referring to hours, scheduling, earnings, and other aspects of parents’ jobs that influence household well-being. While more and more parents are participating in the labour market, many of them are trapped in precarious jobs that offer limited stability, security, or pay. Rather than promote household well-being, these precarious jobs are harmful to the mental health and development of children and youth, the team’s findings suggest.
The team conducted a pair of studies using complementary data sources: the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth and the Ontario Child Health Study. Rather than look simply at whether parents were employed or not, the two studies examined multiple dimensions of job quality—including working hours, scheduling patterns, job stability, and earnings—to paint a comprehensive picture of household employment arrangements in Canada and Ontario, respectively. The findings, published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health and Social Science & Medicine, reveal that children and youth whose parents had access to stable, high-quality employment experienced better mental health and academic outcomes, while those whose parents were in precarious work arrangements faced a substantially higher risk of mental health problems and performed significantly worse at school.
The project findings suggest that employment policy can serve as a powerful tool for improving child health and well-being. Interventions that enhance job quality—such as legislation requiring predictable work schedules, stronger employment protections, and higher minimum wages—may benefit not only workers but also their children. For healthcare providers and educators working with families, the findings underscore the importance of considering parental employment conditions when seeking to address children's mental health and academic challenges. Ultimately, this research suggests that supporting parents in securing stable, high-quality employment could be one of the most effective upstream approaches to promoting positive outcomes for children, with benefits that may extend into early adulthood, later life, and even across generations.
On behalf of the research team, Dr. Shahidi and Dr. Fuller would like to thank the Edwin S.H. Leong Centre for Healthy Children for supporting this project in its efforts to illuminate how improving the quality of jobs in Canada can create lasting benefits for children and their families.
