COMMENT ON HEYNS AND CATSAMBIS'S "MOTHER'S EMPLOYMENT AND CHILDREN'S ACHIEVEMENT: A CRITIQUE".

The research literature has clearly shown that family background variables are related to children's achievement. Among these background variables are parents' occupations, parents' education, family income, race, family structure, and parents' work patterns. This paper presents new evidence on the effect of two of these background variables family structure and parents' work patterns, on students' achievement. These two variables are particularly interesting in light of recent increases in the proportions of one-parent families and working mothers. Between 1970 and 1980, the proportion of children living in one-parent families increased from 11 .9 percent to 19.7 percent. The literature on one-parent families almost exclusively addresses father absence and relates it to a number of child outcomes, including cognitive performance. Other intervening variables that mediate the effect of mother's employment, e.g., mother's attitude toward her work, her degree of professionalism, or the quality of alternative day care-were not available in the data bases used here.