The Relationship between Physical Growth Indices and Maternal Employment in Children Aged 7 to 11 Years

 It has been reported that differences in the level of education and employment status of the parents can affect the children’s growth index.

 Given the importance of children’s optimal growth rate on society’s health and since parental employment can alter children’s growth index, we decided to conduct a comparative study of the growth indices of children aged 7 to 11 years with working mothers and stay-at-home mothers.

 A sample of 300 male students aged 7 to 11 years was selected using convenience sampling. The children’s height, weight, and BMI were measured by a trained individual twice to reduce error. After collecting the required information from 300 students, data analysis was performed in SPSS 24 and Microsoft Excel using the analysis of independent t-test at the significance level of 0.05.

 Of the 300 students examined, 21.7% (n = 65) were 7 years old, 20.7% (n = 62) were 8 years old, 21% (n = 63) were 9 years old, 20% (n = 60) were 10 years old, and 16.7% (n = 50) were 11 years old. Moreover, 225 mothers stayed at home, and 75 worked. Based on the independent t-test to compare the BMI of the children whose mothers stayed at home and those whose mothers worked, a significant difference was observed only in children aged 7 years, whose BMI was lower in the working mothers’ group (P = 0.02).

 It seems that children who have stay-at-home mothers tend to have better growth than those whose mothers work at certain ages.