Parental Job Loss and Children's School Performance

Using Norwegian register data, we estimate how children's school performance is affected by their parents' exposure to plant closure. Our estimates suggest that paternal job loss has a negative effect on children's school performance. In contrast, maternal job loss is associated with a non-significant increase in school performance. Importantly, the negative effect of paternal job loss appears largely unrelated to its effect on father's income, father's employment status, a shift in maternal time towards employment, marital dissolution, and residential relocation. A disparate effect of job loss across fathers and mothers is, however, consistent with recent empirical studies documenting that the mental distress experienced by displaced workers is generally more severe for men than women. Copyright 2011, Oxford University Press.