Parental Job Loss and Infant Health

Jason Lindo

No 5213, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Although there exists a large literature documenting various consequences of job loss, this paper is the first to explore the extent to which the health effects of job displacement extend to the children of displaced workers and also the first to consider whether there are any harmful effects for children who are not yet born when the separation occurs. I use detailed work and fertility histories from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to estimate the effect of parents' job displacements on children's birth weights. These data allow for an identification strategy that essentially compares the outcomes of children born after a displacement to the outcomes of their siblings born before using mother fixed effects. I find that husbands’ job losses have significant negative effects on infant health. They reduce birth weights by approximately four and a half percent with suggestive evidence that the effect is concentrated on the lower half of the birth weight distribution.

Keywords: children; infant health; job loss; displacement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 J13 J63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2010-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Published - published in: Journal of Health Economics, 2011, 30 (5), 869 - 897

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Journal Article: Parental job loss and infant health (2011)
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