Intergenerational Scars: The Impact of Parental Unemployment on Individual Health Later in Life

Ubaldi Michele () and Matteo Picchio
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Ubaldi Michele: Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Marche Polytechnic University, Ancona, Italy

German Economic Review, 2025, vol. 26, issue 1, 35-70

Abstract: This paper studies whether individuals that experienced parental unemployment during their childhood/early adolescence have poorer health once they reach the adulthood. We used data from the German Socio-Economic Panel from 2002 until 2018. Our identification strategy of the causal effect of parental unemployment relied on plant closures as exogenous variation of the individual labor market condition. We combined matching methods and parametric estimation to strengthen the causal interpretation of the estimates. On the one hand, we found a nil effect for parental unemployment on mental health. On the other hand, we detected a negative effect on physical health, which is stronger if parental unemployment occurred in late periods of the childhood and heterogeneous across gender. The negative effect of parental unemployment on physical health may be explained by a higher alcohol and tobacco consumption later in life.

Keywords: parental unemployment; plant closure; mental health; physical health; health behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 J62 J65 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Related works:
Working Paper: INTERGENERATIONAL SCARS: THE IMPACT OF PARENTAL UNEMPLOYMENT ON INDIVIDUAL HEALTH LATER IN LIFE (2023)
Working Paper: Intergenerational Scars: The Impact of Parental Unemployment on Individual Health Later in Life (2023)
Working Paper: Intergenerational Scars: The Impact of Parental Unemployment on Individual Health Later in Life (2023)
Working Paper: Intergenerational scars: The impact of parental unemployment on individual health later in life (2023)
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DOI: 10.1515/ger-2024-0058

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