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THE stress cost of children on moms and dads

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  • Buddelmeyer, Hielke
  • Hamermesh, Daniel S.
  • Wooden, Mark

Abstract

We use longitudinal data describing couples in Australia from 2001 to 12 and Germany from 2002 to 12 to examine how demographic events affect mothers’ and fathers’ perceived time and financial stress. Consistent with the view of measures of stress as proxies for Lagrangean multipliers in models of household production, we show that births increase time stress, especially among mothers, and that the effects last at least several years. Births also slightly raise both parents’ financial stress. While the departure of a child from the home reduces parents’ time stress, its negative impacts on the tightness of the time constraints are much smaller than the positive impacts of a birth.

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  • Buddelmeyer, Hielke & Hamermesh, Daniel S. & Wooden, Mark, 2018. "THE stress cost of children on moms and dads," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 148-161.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:109:y:2018:i:c:p:148-161
    DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2016.12.012
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    2. Watson Nicole & Wooden Mark, 2021. "The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 241(1), pages 131-141, February.
    3. Klaus Wälde, 2015. "Stress and Coping - An Economic Approach," Jena Economics Research Papers 2015-020, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    4. Barbara Pertold-Gebicka & Dominika Spolcova, 2019. "Family Size and Subjective Well-being in Europe: Do More Children Make Us (Un)Happy?," Working Papers IES 2019/24, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Aug 2019.
    5. Yu, Shuye & Postepska, Agnieszka, 2020. "Flexible Jobs Make Parents Happier: Evidence from Australia," IZA Discussion Papers 13700, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Lyn Craig & Theun Pieter Tienoven, 2021. "Gendered Shares of the Family Rush Hour in Fulltime Dual Earner Families. A Cross National Comparison," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 385-405, January.
    7. Hiromi Kawasaki & Satoko Yamasaki & Mika Nishiyama & Pete D’Angelo & Zhengai Cui, 2022. "Relationship between the Type A Personality Concept of Time Urgency and Mothers’ Parenting Situation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-11, December.
    8. Lavieri, Patrícia S. & Bhat, Chandra R., 2019. "Modeling individuals’ willingness to share trips with strangers in an autonomous vehicle future," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 242-261.
    9. Jan Priebe, 2020. "Quasi-experimental evidence for the causal link between fertility and subjective well-being," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(3), pages 839-882, July.
    10. Cozzi, Guido & Francesconi, Marco & Lundberg, Shelly & Mantovan, Noemi & Sauer, Robert M., 2018. "Advancing the economics of gender: New insights and a roadmap for the future," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 1-8.
    11. Marina Zannella & Alessandra De Rose, 2021. "Fathers’ and mothers’ enjoyment of childcare: the role of multitasking," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 19(1), pages 355-382.
    12. Dora d’Orsi & Manuela Veríssimo & Eva Diniz, 2023. "Father Involvement and Maternal Stress: The Mediating Role of Coparenting," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(8), pages 1-12, April.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Births; Children; Financial stress; Time stress;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

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