Does Childhood Cochlear Implantation Spill Over to Carers' Employment Status?

Rajan Sharma; Massimiliano Tani; Zhiming Cheng; Teresa Y C Ching; Vivienne Marnane; Silvia Mendolia; Bonny Parkinson

doi:10.1097/AUD.0000000000001588

Does Childhood Cochlear Implantation Spill Over to Carers' Employment Status?

Ear Hear. 2024 Sep 19. doi: 10.1097/AUD.0000000000001588. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Rajan Sharma^{1

2

3}, Massimiliano Tani^{4

5

6}, Zhiming Cheng^{7

8}, Teresa Y C Ching^{9

10

11}, Vivienne Marnane¹², Silvia Mendolia^{13

14}, Bonny Parkinson^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy (MUCHE), Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
² Macquarie Business School (MQBS), Macquarie University, Sydney, Macquarie Park, New South Wales, Australia.
³ Australian Institute for Health Innovation (AIHI), Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
⁴ School of Business, University of New South Wales, Northcott Drive, Canberra, Campbell ACT, Australia.
⁵ Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn, Germany.
⁶ Global Labor Organisation, Essen, Germany.
⁷ Department of Management, Macquarie Business School, Macquarie University, Macquarie Park, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
⁸ Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
⁹ Macquarie School of Education, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
¹⁰ NextSense Institute, North Rocks, New South Wales, Australia.
¹¹ School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia.
¹² National Acoustic Laboratories, Australian Hearing Hub, Macquarie Park, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
¹³ School of Accounting, Economics and Finance, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia; and.
¹⁴ Applied Mathematics and Statistics, University of Turin, Turin, Italy.

PMID: 39294871
DOI: 10.1097/AUD.0000000000001588

Abstract

Objectives: Carers of children with disabilities, especially primary carers, tend to have poorer labor market outcomes than carers of typically developing children. However, the extant literature has been largely silent on whether interventions for children's disabilities spill over to carers' employment outcomes, if at all. We aimed to fill this gap.

Design: We analyzed data from the Longitudinal Outcomes of Children with Hearing Impairment study, which is a unique panel dataset of Australian children who are deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH). The Longitudinal Outcomes of Children with Hearing Impairment dataset includes information about 449 DHH children. We used 3 waves covering the same children at ages 0 to 3, 5 to 7, and 8 to 10 years during 2005 and 2018. We used a panel random-effects model, the use of which was supported by the Hausman specification test to control for time-invariant individual heterogeneity.

Results: We found that primary carers (typically mothers) of DHH children with cochlear implants (CI) were more likely to be employed relative to DHH children without a CI. The positive association was stronger among carers from a lower socioeconomic background.

Conclusions: The association between childhood CI and carer employment may potentially be due to relaxed primary carers' time constraints to care for the child, increased self-efficacy, and reduced carer stress, enabling them to engage in other activities, including employment. Further research through large-scale, longitudinal studies is warranted to solidify the findings of this research.

Abstract

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