Full Citation

Title: School Lunch Policy and Parental Working Trends

Citation Type: Dissertation/Thesis

Publication Year: 2022

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DOI: 10.15760/honors.1286

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Abstract: The belief that women should specialize in domestic tasks was not challenged until the mid-20th century. At this point, more women sought employment outside of their homes, but they were still expected to complete all their homes’ domestic tasks. The provision of lunch for students by schools, whether at cost or free of cost, was a form of lessening the load for working mothers. Having access to food at school allows students to be fed and parents to have more liberty with their time. Although the intention behind school lunch is to benefit students and parents, the benefits to parents are seldom outlined. One potential effect is additional free time (Datar & Nicosia, 2012). This effect is especially relevant when it comes to categorizing parents’ work in and outside of the home. The question this paper will answer is how the implementation of school lunch programs affects parents’ likelihood to work outside of the home, and the number of hours they work. Previous works can be categorized into three groups: scrutinization of parents for school lunch preparation, the impact of socioeconomic status on the choice to opt in school lunch programs, and the relationship between policies and additional free time. These works provide insight into the factors that could influence school lunch uptake. Parents, but especially mothers, face scrutiny when preparing lunches for their children (Pike & Leahy, 2012). This is heightened when mothers work outside of the home. There is research on socioeconomic status and its impact on school lunch consumption (Cullen, et al., 2009) and on policies that have freed up time for parents (Datar & Nicosia, 2012). These works have found that parents are saving time when they opt for their children to eat school lunch, but they do not address what parents are doing with that additional time. Paniagua 3 In this paper, I study the effects of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (2010) on school lunch consumption and parental working trends. Using variables from a national survey on poverty rates and measures of income, I created a linear regression equation. This equation enabled me to analyze the effects of the policy on school lunch uptake. I found that after the policy was implemented, school lunch uptake appeared to increase for children of all income brackets. After observing this effect, I analyzed the effect of the policy on parental working trends by varying subpopulations. Most individuals in these subpopulations appeared to decrease both their likelihood of working and the hours they worked after the policy passed. The following sections will provide context and discourse about my findings.

Url: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2486&context=honorstheses

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Authors: Paniagua, Sophia D

Institution: Portland State University

Department: Economics

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Pages: 1-30

Data Collections: IPUMS CPS

Topics: Education, Gender, Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Work, Family, and Time

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