Contrary to previous years, children who see their moms leaving home for the workforce after welfare are not negatively affected, according to a recent study published in the March 7 issue of Science magazine.

“The conclusion of the study showed that during good economic times, children in low-income families are not harmed when their mothers leave welfare or move into the workforce,” said lead author of the study, Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, a developmental psychology professor at Northwestern’s School of Education and Social Policy.

The study included diverse regions of the country and a diverse mix of racial and ethnic groups that were below the federal poverty line.

It surveyed 2,402 low-income children and their mothers from Boston, Chicago and San Antonio consisting of about 46 percent of the children being of African-American descent, 48 percent Hispanic and 6 percent non-Hispanic white and other ethnicities, said co-author of the study Andrew J. Cherlin, the chairman of the sociology department at Johns Hopkins University.

Chase-Lansdale said that in previous studies on the subject, there were negative effects found when mothers entered the workforce while this study shows improvements in adolescents’ mental health and a decrease in behavior problems in teenagers when mothers left for the workforce.

This points to the fact that mothers going into the workforce and not depending on welfare may be beneficial for teens, but neither help nor hurt preschoolers, Chase-Lansdale said. The positive result could possibly come from teen’s lower anxiety levels when mothers go to work.

The assessment of the study came from assessing the children’s reading and math skills, mothers completed a 100-item report measuring behavioral problems, while the children did self-reports measuring psychological distress and delinquent behaviors said Cherlin.

“An argument for why the study has come out as it has, is due to the trade off of a family income increase of mothers and the decreased with children balance each other out,” Chase-Lansdale said.