Impacts of parental health on children's development of personality traits and problem behavior: Evidence from parental health shocks

G. Brant Morefield, Andrea Mühlenweg and Franz Westermaier

No 11-049, ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Abstract: In this paper, we examine how parental health affects children's development of personality traits and problem behavior. Based on a German mother-and-child data base, we draw on observed parental health shocks as a more exogenous source of health variation to identify these effects and control for child and family characteristics including variables reflecting initial endowments observed at birth. At the age of six, we observe that maternal health shocks in early childhood have significant impacts on children's emotional symptoms, hyperactivity and neuroticism. Paternal health seems to be less relevant for the development of these non-cognitive characteristics. However, we observe that paternal health shocks cause children to be more extraverted.

Keywords: Human capital; health; personality traits; non-cognitive skills (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I00 I10 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-hea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:zewdip:11049

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