Abstract
This paper studies the causal effect of maternal and paternal unemployment on child health in China, analyzing panel data for the period 1997–2004, when the country underwent economic reforms leading to massive layoffs. Using a FE-IV strategy, we find that paternal unemployment reduces child health, while maternal unemployment has beneficial child health impacts. Analysis of channels shows that paternal and maternal unemployment have different effects on income, time use, and children’s diets. Though many estimates are imprecise, a key finding is that paternal unemployment significantly reduces children’s fat intake and dietary diversity. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first evidence on the causal effect of parental unemployment on the nutrient intake of children aged 0–17. In all, our estimates are consistent with the notion that traditional gender roles can explain why mothers’ and fathers’ unemployment affect child health differently.
Highlights
Healthy development of children is an important concern across societies, as illustrated by the Sustainable Development Goals’ targets for reducing child stunting and wasting
Though the direct impact of the reforms was strongest in urban China and most research on the impacts of State Owned Enterprise (SOE) restructuring has focused on urban labor markets, we find similar trends in employment rates in the urban and rural sample (Fig. 4), 9 For example, one study in two cities in China found that 2 years after being laid off, 50% of workers laid off due to the SOE restructuring had excited the labour force by official definitions, 25% were officially unemployed, and 25% had secured further employment (Betcherman and Blunch, 2008)
Our results suggest that reduced fat intake and dietary diversity play a role in the negative child health effects of paternal unemployment, while increased dietary diversity may be a channel through which maternal joblessness improves child health
Summary
Healthy development of children is an important concern across societies, as illustrated by the Sustainable Development Goals’ targets for reducing child stunting and wasting. Despite considerable gains in height and weight amongst children, estimates suggest that in 2015, 50 million infants (7.5%) were wasted and 159 million infants (23.8%) were stunted (UNICEF 2015). An important channel through which macroeconomic conditions and policy reforms affect child health is through parental employment. A loss of employment is typically associated with income and substitution effects that operate in different directions (Ferreira and Schady 2009). Unemployment will lower income available for spending on market goods, including health care, non-household child care, and nutritious consumption, whilst lowering the opportunity cost of time so that we might observe increases in home-produced and time-intensive health investments.
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