The Intergenerational Cost of Parental Illness: Childrens' School Engagement in Chile

Severe health events are among the most common shocks households face, and in low- and middle-income countries their consequences are absorbed largely within the family. We study how a parents severe illness affects adolescents' education in Chile. Using linked administrative records for the universe of school-age children and quasi-random variation in the occurrence and timing of parents first cancer hospitalizations, we compare exposed students with untreated classmates in a stacked difference-in-differences design. The shock reduces school enrollment and attendance and raises chronic absenteeism, with effects that persist for up to four years and roughly double for high-severity cancers. Disruptions are substantially larger for girls, consistent with caregiving and household responsibilities falling disproportionately on them. The educational response varies little with households' pre-shock labor market position, and children's hospitalizations do not rise. These findings point to an intergenerational cost of parental illness and a role for social protection in mitigating it.