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The Role of Mothers and Fathers in Providing Skills: Evidence from Parental Deaths

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  • Adda, Jérôme

    (Bocconi University)

  • Björklund, Anders

    (SOFI, Stockholm University)

  • Holmlund, Helena

    (IFAU)

Abstract

This paper evaluates the long-term consequences of parental death on children’s cognitive and noncognitive skills, as well as on labor market outcomes. We exploit a large administrative data set covering many Swedish cohorts. We develop new estimation methods to tackle the potential endogeneity of death at an early age, based on the idea that the amount of endogeneity is constant or decreasing during childhood. Our method also allows us to identify a set of death causes that are conditionally exogenous. We find that the loss of either a father or a mother on boys' earnings is no higher than 6-7 percent and slightly lower for girls. Our examination of the impact on cognitive skills (IQ and educational attainment) and on noncognitive skills (emotional stability, social skills) shows rather small effects on each type of skill. We find that both mothers and fathers are important, but mothers are somewhat more important for cognitive skills and fathers for noncognitive ones.

Suggested Citation

  • Adda, Jérôme & Björklund, Anders & Holmlund, Helena, 2011. "The Role of Mothers and Fathers in Providing Skills: Evidence from Parental Deaths," IZA Discussion Papers 5425, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5425
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    Cited by:

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    2. Bratti, Massimiliano & Mendola, Mariapia, 2014. "Parental health and child schooling," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 94-108.
    3. Petri Bockerman & Mika Haapanen & Christopher Jepsen, 2021. "Dark Passage: Mental Health Consequences of Parental Death," Working Papers 202107, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    4. Simone Schüller, 2015. "Parental ethnic identity and educational attainment of second-generation immigrants," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 28(4), pages 965-1004, October.
    5. Avdic, Daniel & Karimi, Arizo & Sjögren, Anna & Sundberg, Elin, 2023. "Paternity leave and child outcomes," Working Paper Series 2023:25, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    6. Gould, Eric & Simhon, Avi, 2011. "Does Quality Time Produce Quality Children? Evidence on the Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital using Parental Deat," CEPR Discussion Papers 8258, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Andrea M. Mühlenweg & Franz G. Westermaier & Brant Morefield, 2016. "Parental health and child behavior: evidence from parental health shocks," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 577-598, September.
    8. Dupraz, Yannick & Ferrara, Andreas, 2021. "Fatherless: The Long-Term Effects of Losing a Father in the U.S. Civil War," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 538, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    9. Timo Hener & Helmut Rainer & Thomas Siedler, 2016. "Political socialization in flux?: linking family non-intactness during childhood to adult civic engagement," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 179(3), pages 633-656, June.
    10. Huong Thu Le & Ha Trong Nguyen, 2017. "Parental health and children's cognitive and noncognitive development: New evidence from the longitudinal survey of Australian children," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(12), pages 1767-1788, December.
    11. Franz Westermaier & Brant Morefield & Andrea Mühlenweg, 2013. "Impacts of Parental Health Shocks on Children’s NonCognitive Skills," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201312, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    12. Eric D. Gould & Avi Simhon & Bruce A. Weinberg, 2020. "Does Parental Quality Matter? Evidence on the Transmission of Human Capital Using Variation in Parental Influence from Death, Divorce, and Family Size," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(2), pages 569-610.
    13. Aaskoven, Maiken Skovrider & Kjær, Trine & Gyrd-Hansen, Dorte, 2022. "Effects of parental health shocks on children's school achievements: A register-based population study," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    14. Fabrizio Bernardi & Diederik Boertien, 2017. "Explaining Conflicting Results in Research on the Heterogeneous Effects of Parental Separation on Children’s Educational Attainment According to Social Background," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 33(2), pages 243-266, May.
    15. Villar, Paola, 2021. "Paternal mortality, early marriages, and marital trajectories in Senegal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    16. Ze Chen & Yuan Wang & Yanjun Guan & Michael Jie Guo & Rong Xu, 2023. "Long‐term effect of childhood pandemic experience on medical major choice: Evidence from the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in China," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(5), pages 1120-1147, May.
    17. Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes & Esther Arenas-Arroyo, 2017. "The Changing Family Structure of American Children with Unauthorized Parents," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 1711, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    18. Morefield, Brant & Mühlenweg, Andrea M. & Westermaier, Franz, 2011. "Impacts of parental health on children's development of personality traits and problem behavior: Evidence from parental health shocks," ZEW Discussion Papers 11-049, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    19. Gong, Jie & Lu, Yi & Xie, Huihua, 2020. "The average and distributional effects of teenage adversity on long-term health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    20. Kieron J. Barclay & Martin Hällsten, 2019. "Socioeconomic variation in child educational and socioeconomic attainment after parental death in Sweden," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2019-008, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    21. Ida Lykke Kristiansen, 2021. "Consequences of serious parental health events on child mental health and educational outcomes," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(8), pages 1772-1817, August.
    22. Massimiliano Bratti & Mendola, M., 2013. "GINI DP 63: Parental Health and Child Schooling!," GINI Discussion Papers 63, AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.
    23. Lim, Sung Soo, 2020. "Parental chronic illness and child education: Evidence from children in Indonesia," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    24. Jérémy Tanguy, 2022. "The impact of parents' health shocks on children's health behaviors," French Stata Users' Group Meetings 2022 22, Stata Users Group.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    family background; cognitive and noncognitive skills; parental death;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J17 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Value of Life; Foregone Income
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

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