Parental Well-Being in Times of COVID-19 in Germany

Mathias Huebener, Sevrin Waights, Katharina Spiess (), Nico A. Siegel () and Gert Wagner
Additional contact information
Nico A. Siegel: Infratest Dimap

No 13556, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We examine the differential effects of Covid-19 and related restrictions on individuals with dependent children in Germany. We specifically focus on the role of school and day care center closures, which may be regarded as a "disruptive exogenous shock" to family life. We make use of a novel representative survey of parental well-being collected in May and June 2020 in Germany, when schools and day care centers were closed but while other measures had been relaxed and new infections were low. In our descriptive analysis, we compare well-being during this period with a pre-crisis period for different groups. In a difference-in-differences design, we compare the change for individuals with children to the change for individuals without children, accounting for unrelated trends as well as potential survey mode and context effects. We find that the crisis lowered the relative well-being of individuals with children, especially for individuals with young children, for women, and for persons with lower secondary schooling qualifications. Our results suggest that public policy measures taken to contain Covid-19 can have large effects on family well-being, with implications for child development and parental labor market outcomes.

Keywords: well-being; COVID-19; Corona Virus; day care closures; school closures; COMPASS; SOEP (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D1 H12 H75 I2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43 pages
Date: 2020-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-hap
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Published - published in: Review of Economics of the Household, 2021, 81, 91 - 120

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp13556.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Parental well-being in times of Covid-19 in Germany (2021)
Journal Article: Parental well-being in times of Covid-19 in Germany (2021)
Working Paper: Parental well-being in times of Covid-19 in Germany (2021)
Working Paper: Parental well-being in times of Covid-19 in Germany (2020)
Working Paper: Parental Well-Being in Times of Covid-19 in Germany (2020)
Working Paper: Parental Well-Being in Times of Covid-19 in Germany (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13556

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().