IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eecrev/v109y2018icp148-161.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

THE stress cost of children on moms and dads

Author

Listed:
  • 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.

Suggested Citation

  • 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
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292117300028
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2016.12.012?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Reto Odermatt & Alois Stutzer, 2019. "(Mis-)Predicted Subjective Well-Being Following Life Events," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 245-283.
    2. Melinda Podor & Timothy J. Halliday, 2012. "Health status and the allocation of time," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(5), pages 514-527, May.
    3. Ashenfelter, Orley C, 1978. "Estimating the Effect of Training Programs on Earnings," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 60(1), pages 47-57, February.
    4. Michael Burda & Daniel Hamermesh & Philippe Weil, 2013. "Total work and gender: facts and possible explanations," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(1), pages 239-261, January.
    5. Stanca, Luca, 2012. "Suffer the little children: Measuring the effects of parenthood on well-being worldwide," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(3), pages 742-750.
    6. Gustafsson, Bjorn & Kjulin, Urban, 1994. "Time Use in Child Care and Housework and the Total Cost of Children," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 7(3), pages 287-306, July.
    7. Baetschmann, Gregori & Staub, Kevin E. & Studer, Raphael, 2016. "Does the stork deliver happiness? Parenthood and life satisfaction," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 242-260.
    8. FranÚois Bourguignon, 1999. "The cost of children: May the collective approach to household behavior help?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 12(4), pages 503-521.
    9. Pollak, Robert A & Wales, Terence J, 1979. "Welfare Comparisons and Equivalence Scales," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(2), pages 216-221, May.
    10. Muellbauer, John, 1977. "Testing the Barten Model of Household Composition Effects and the Cost of Children," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 87(347), pages 460-487, September.
    11. Pedersen, Peder J. & Schmidt, Torben Dall, 2014. "Life Events and Subjective Well-being: The Case of Having Children," IZA Discussion Papers 8207, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Daniel S. Hamermesh & Jungmin Lee, 2007. "Stressed Out on Four Continents: Time Crunch or Yuppie Kvetch?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(2), pages 374-383, May.
    13. Bruce Bradbury, 2008. "Time And The Cost Of Children," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 54(3), pages 305-323, September.
    14. Markus H. Hahn & John P. Haisken-DeNew, 2013. "PanelWhiz and the Australian Longitudinal Data Infrastructure in Economics," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 46(3), pages 379-386, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Klaus Wälde, 2015. "Stress and Coping - An Economic Approach," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2015018, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    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. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. Yu, Shuye & Postepska, Agnieszka, 2020. "Flexible Jobs Make Parents Happier: Evidence from Australia," IZA Discussion Papers 13700, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Friedman-Sokuler, Naomi & Senik, Claudia, 2023. "Time-Use and Subjective Well-Being: Is Diversity Really the Spice of Life?," IZA Discussion Papers 16090, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Buddelmeyer, Hielke & Hamermesh, Daniel S. & Wooden, Mark, 2015. "The Stress Cost of Children," IZA Discussion Papers 8793, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Angela Greulich & Sonja Spitzer & Bernhard Hammer, 2022. "The Subjective Cost of Young Children: A European Comparison," Post-Print hal-03677151, HAL.
    3. 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.
    4. Angela Greulich & Sonja Spitzer & Bernhard Hammer, 2022. "The Subjective Cost of Young Children: A European Comparison," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03677151, HAL.
    5. Sonja Spitzer & Angela Greulich & Bernhard Hammer, 2022. "The Subjective Cost of Young Children: A European Comparison," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 163(3), pages 1165-1189, October.
    6. Melanie Borah & Andreas Knabe & Kevin Pahlke, 2021. "Parental time restrictions and the cost of children: insights from a survey among mothers," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 19(1), pages 73-95, March.
    7. Apps, Patricia & Rees, Ray, 2001. "Household production, full consumption and the costs of children," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(6), pages 621-648, December.
    8. Ariane Pailhé & Anne Solaz & Maria Letizia Tanturri, 2019. "The Time Cost of Raising Children in Different Fertility Contexts: Evidence from France and Italy," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 35(2), pages 223-261, May.
    9. Márta K. Radó, 2020. "Tracking the Effects of Parenthood on Subjective Well-Being: Evidence from Hungary," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 21(6), pages 2069-2094, August.
    10. Bruce Bradbury, 2014. "Pensions for Singles and Couples," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(3), pages 480-498, September.
    11. Antonella Caiumi & Federico Perali, 2015. "Who bears the full cost of children? Evidence from a collective demand system," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 33-64, August.
    12. Sophie Cetre & Andrew E. Clark & Claudia Senik, 2016. "Happy People Have Children: Choice and Self-Selection into Parenthood," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 32(3), pages 445-473, August.
    13. Gimenez-Nadal, J. Ignacio & Molina, Jose Alberto, 2015. "Health status and the allocation of time: Cross-country evidence from Europe," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 188-203.
    14. Trevon D. Logan, 2011. "Economies Of Scale In The Household: Puzzles And Patterns From The American Past," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 49(4), pages 1008-1028, October.
    15. Bargain, Olivier & Donni, Olivier, 2009. "The Measurement of Child Costs: A Rothbarth-Type Method Consistent with Scale Economies," IZA Discussion Papers 4654, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Pashardes, Panos, 1995. "Equivalence scales in a rank-3 demand system," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 143-158, September.
    17. Martin Browning & Pierre-André Chiappori & Arthur Lewbel, 2013. "Estimating Consumption Economies of Scale, Adult Equivalence Scales, and Household Bargaining Power," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(4), pages 1267-1303.
    18. Lewbel, Arthur, 2003. "Calculating compensation in cases of wrongful death," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 113(1), pages 115-128, March.
    19. Ahlheim, Michael & Schneider, Friedrich, 2013. "Considering Household Size in Contingent Valuation Studies," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79974, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    20. Hélène Couprie & Gaëlle Ferrant, 2015. "Welfare Comparisons, Economies of Scale and Equivalence Scale in Time Use," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 117-118, pages 185-210.

    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

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:109:y:2018:i:c:p:148-161. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eer .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.