The Effect of Children on Health

Beatrice Baaba Tawiah (beatrice.baaba.tawiah@uni-paderborn.de)
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Beatrice Baaba Tawiah: Paderborn University

No 103, Working Papers Dissertations from Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics

Abstract: This paper analyses the causal effect of having children on parents' health. I consider men and women from ages 50 to 90 with at least two children in the German Socio-Economic Panel data. Twin birth at second birth and same sex of first two children are used as instruments to exogenously determine the number of children. I find negative effects on the BMI of women, and negative effects on the mental and physical health of men. Looking at the effects over the life-cycle, I find that the BMI of women increases until age 64. Mental health starts to decline from age 75. The effect on physical health fluctuates over the life-cycle. The results show that children negatively affect parental health and the effects are not constant over the life-cycle.

Keywords: Childbirth; Health; Instrumental variables (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 C36 I10 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38
Date: 2023-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-hea
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