TY - JOUR
T1 - The impact of maternal mental health shocks on child health
T2 - Estimates from fixed-effects instrumental variables models for two cohorts of Australian children
AU - Le, Huong Thu
AU - Nguyen, Ha Trong
PY - 2018/5/1
Y1 - 2018/5/1
N2 - This paper contributes to an emerging body of literature on intergenerational transmission in health by presenting the causal estimates on the impact of maternal mental health shocks on child health. The potential endogeneity of maternal mental health shocks is dealt with by utilizing nationally representative panel data from two cohorts and individual fixed-effects instrumental variables models. While our results show that poor maternal mental health does not affect children’s general health, asthma morbidity, or anthropometric measures, our results indicate that children of depressed mothers do need extra medical care. For this child health outcome, higher adverse impact is found for boys, younger children, children of mothers with lower education, and children in lower-income households. We also find that children of depressed mothers are more likely to have food or digestive allergies and tonsillitis incidence. Our study demonstrates that failing to account for endogeneity of maternal mental health shocks could overestimate the harmful impact of poor maternal mental health on child health. Our findings are robust to a battery of sensitivity and specification tests.
AB - This paper contributes to an emerging body of literature on intergenerational transmission in health by presenting the causal estimates on the impact of maternal mental health shocks on child health. The potential endogeneity of maternal mental health shocks is dealt with by utilizing nationally representative panel data from two cohorts and individual fixed-effects instrumental variables models. While our results show that poor maternal mental health does not affect children’s general health, asthma morbidity, or anthropometric measures, our results indicate that children of depressed mothers do need extra medical care. For this child health outcome, higher adverse impact is found for boys, younger children, children of mothers with lower education, and children in lower-income households. We also find that children of depressed mothers are more likely to have food or digestive allergies and tonsillitis incidence. Our study demonstrates that failing to account for endogeneity of maternal mental health shocks could overestimate the harmful impact of poor maternal mental health on child health. Our findings are robust to a battery of sensitivity and specification tests.
KW - Australia
KW - Health
KW - Instrumental variables
KW - Intergenerational transmission
KW - Panel data
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85046490574&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1162/ajhe_a_00100
DO - 10.1162/ajhe_a_00100
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85046490574
SN - 2332-3493
VL - 4
SP - 185
EP - 225
JO - American Journal of Health Economics
JF - American Journal of Health Economics
IS - 2
ER -