Parental Health and Child Schooling

Evidence on the role of parental health on child schooling is surprisingly thin. We explore this issue by estimating the short-run effects of parents\' illness on child school enrollment. Our analysis is based on household panel data from Bosnia-Herzegovina, a country whose health and educational systems underwent extensive destruction during the 1992-1995 war. Using child fixed effects to correct for potential endogeneity bias, we find that — contrary to the common wisdom that shocks to the primary household earner should have more negative consequences for child education — it is especially maternal health that makes a difference as far as child schooling is concerned. Children whose mothers self-reported having poor health are about 7 percentage points less likely to be enrolled in education at ages 15-24. These results are robust to considering alternative indicators of parental health status such as the presence of limitations in the activities of daily living and depres-sion symptoms. Moreover, we find that mothers\' health shocks have more negative consequences on younger children and sons.