The Stress Cost of Children

Hielke Buddelmeyer (), Daniel Hamermesh and Mark Wooden
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Hielke Buddelmeyer: Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research

No 8793, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We use longitudinal data describing couples in Australia from 2001-12 and Germany from 2002-12 to examine how demographic events affect perceived time and financial stress. Consistent with the view of measures of stress as proxies for the Lagrangean multipliers in models of household production, we show that births increase time stress, especially among mothers, and that the effects last at least several years. Births generally also raise financial stress slightly. The monetary equivalent of the costs of the extra time stress is very large. While the departure of a child from the home reduces parents' time stress, its negative impacts on the tightness of the time constraints are much smaller than the positive impacts of a birth.

Keywords: children; demographic economics; time use (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2015-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-ltv
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Published - published in: European Economic Review, 2018, 109, 148 - 161

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Related works:
Working Paper: The Stress Cost of Children (2015)
Working Paper: The Stress Cost of Children (2015)
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