Impacts of Parental Health Shocks on Children's Non-Cognitive Skills

23 Pages Posted: 5 Mar 2013

See all articles by Franz Westermaier

Franz Westermaier

University of Marburg

Brant Morefield

Abt Associates, Inc.; University of North Carolina (UNC) at Greensboro

Andrea Mühlenweg

ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

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Date Written: March 1, 2013

Abstract

We examine how parental health shocks affect children’s non-cognitive skills. Based on a German mother-and-child data base, we draw on significant changes in self-reported parental health as an exogenous source of health variation to identify effects on outcomes for children at ages of three and six years. At the age of six, we observe that maternal health shocks in the previous three years have significant negative effects on children’s behavioral outcomes. The most serious of these maternal health shocks decrease the observed non-cognitive skills up to half a standard deviation. Paternal health does not robustly affect non-cognitive outcomes.

Keywords: human capital, health, non-cognitive skills

JEL Classification: I00, J24, I10

Suggested Citation

Westermaier, Franz and Morefield, Brant and Mühlenweg, Andrea, Impacts of Parental Health Shocks on Children's Non-Cognitive Skills (March 1, 2013). SOEPpaper No. 542, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2228070 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2228070

Franz Westermaier

University of Marburg ( email )

Universitätsstrasse 24
Marburg, D-35032
Germany

Brant Morefield

Abt Associates, Inc.

55 Wheeler Street
Cambridge, MA 02138-1168
United States

University of North Carolina (UNC) at Greensboro ( email )

P.O.Box 26170
Greensboro, NC 27412
United States

Andrea Mühlenweg (Contact Author)

ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research ( email )

L 7,1
Mannheim, 68161
Germany

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