Trajectories of Early Childhood Skill Development and Maternal Mental Health

Dilek Sevim, Victoria Baranov, Sonia Bhalotra, Joanna Maselko and Pietro Biroli

No 20572, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: We investigate the impacts of a perinatal psychosocial intervention on trajectories of maternal mental health and child skills, from birth to age 3. We find improved maternal mental health and functioning (0.17 to 0.29 SD), modest but imprecisely estimated improvements in parenting (0.07 to 0.11 SD), and transitory improvements in child socioemotional development (0.06 to 0.39 SD). The intervention had negligible influence on physical health and cognition. Estimates of a skill production function reveal the intervention attenuated the negative association between maternal depression and child outcomes, and narrowed outcome gaps between mothers who were and were not depressed in pregnancy.

Keywords: Mental health; Gender (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-08
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