More Dangerous Data: Stay-At-Home Moms Make For Healthier Babies

In the March 17, 2014 The Atlantic is an article that found that as unemployment increased, and mothers-to-be worked less, their babies came out healthier:

Libertad González, an associate professor at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra,recently examined the health of registered newborns in Spain from 1981 to 2010, and she cross-referenced the data with the unemployment rate in each of the country's provinces at the time. With each 10 percent increase in unemployment, she found, the neonatal death rate dropped by 7 percent, and the percent of babies with low birth weights decreased by 3 percent.

The reason? During recessions, mothers consistently reported being in better health, and they exhibited healthier behaviors: “They smoke and drink less, exercise and sleep more, and weigh less,” Gonzalez wrote.

Her findings mesh with past research in the U.S. showing that health improves during periods of low economic growth. A 2004 study of American babies, for example, also found that those born in periods of high unemployment had fewer birth defects, were more likely to weigh a healthy amount, and were less likely to die.

The comments are worth reading for the feminist screeching:

This is a subversive manipulation of data to re-enforce the male dominated status quo. 

and:

This is male b.s. Moms who have no jobs are Moms who have no power in the relationship, nowhere and no way to go when things get ugly. She is the most un-empowered being in the adult world. Don't swallow this misogynist claptrap. 

Not every husband is going to win any awards, but I have to believe that the husbands and fathers of these posters have a lot to answer for.