European maternity legislation is more generous than that afforded pregnant workers in the United States and may, in part, may explain the higher US infant mortality rate. This coupled with older women and more non-married women having children has increased interest in the health effects of job stress on pregnancy outcomes in the United States. The few studies available have, for the most part, used self-reported data to assess the association between job stress and instantaneous abortion and findings have been mixed. This work, along with the anecdotal evidence from Europe, suggests that reducing job stress may benefit infant health. However, the first step is to provide more empirical evidence on the exact relationship between employment, job stress, and birth outcomes, which is the aim of this study. The analysis utilizes data from the Vital Statistics birth records from the State of Georgia for the period 1994 to 2002 linked with two sets of state administrative records compiled by the Georgia Department of Labor for the purposes of administering the state's Unemployment Insurance (UI) program, and Welfare Recipient Data from the Georgia Department of Human Resources. These data provide a census of working mothers in the state and contain detailed information on individual human capital, health (pregnancy outcomes), welfare, and labor market characteristics as well as information on the human capital characteristics of the father. After deleting observations with missing data, the sample includes information on 591,105 births to working mothers in this time period. In the analysis adverse birth outcomes are measured by complications of labor and delivery, congenial defects, premature birth, and low-birth weight. Job stress was characterized as holding multiple jobs, a high employer turnover rate, and firm tenure. Preliminary findings reveal positive and statistically significant associations between birth outcomes and job stress. Thus these results suggest that work related stress is detrimental to birth outcomes. To the extent that more generous prenatal benefits including extended maternity leave and job protection reduce stress, one would expect birth outcomes to improve. This is a direction for future work
