Building Health across Generations: Childbirth, Childcare and Maternal Health

Barschkett, M.; and Bosque-Mercader, L.;

Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers from HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York

Abstract: Family dynamics and institutions play significant roles in shaping individuals’ health. We evaluate the short- and long-term effects of (1) motherhood and (2) public early childcare on maternal health. Our results align with an intra-household disease spread from children to mothers in the first years after childbirth, which is further amplified by childcare availability. Additionally, mothers exhibit deteriorated mental health from the medium run, particularly concerning depression diagnoses, due to the psychological demands of motherhood. In contrast, our findings reveal long-term improvements for most health conditions after childbirth, which is supported by childcare provision. Specifically, childcare availability leads to persistent reductions in non-communicable diseases such as obesity, back pain, and hypertension, and, for multiparous and older mothers, in mental health.

Keywords: maternal health; motherhood; early childcare; administrative health data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 I12 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.york.ac.uk/media/economics/documents/h ... papers/2024/2408.pdf Main text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:yor:hectdg:24/08

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers from HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York HEDG/HERC, Department of Economics and Related Studies, University of York, York, YO10 5DD, United Kingdom. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jane Rawlings ().