More Bad News for Mothers: The Child Penalty in Mental Health
Sprache des Vortragstitels:
Englisch
Original Tagungtitel:
SEHO Copenhagen
Sprache des Tagungstitel:
Englisch
Original Kurzfassung:
To assess gender equality in society it is important to understand how parenthood affects
women relative to men. Labor economics has established that women still experience
a child penalty in earnings. It is not clear to which degree gender inequality
due to childbearing extends beyond the labor market and affects well-being. We combine
administrative data from Austria and Denmark with a quasi-experimental event
study approach to estimate the impact of the birth of their first child on parents? mental
health. We find that mental health deteriorates for both parents after birth, but this
effect is much more pronounced for women than for men. The motherhood penalty in
mental health is stronger in Austria compared to Denmark. Longer periods of maternal
leave exacerbate mental problems.