Maternal depression and child human capital: A genetic instrumental-variable approach

Abstract

We here address the causal relationship between maternal depression and child human capital using UK cohort data. We exploit the conditionally-exogenous variation in mothers' genomes in an instrumental-variable approach, and describe the conditions under which mother's genetic variants can be used as valid instruments. An additional episode of maternal depression between the child's birth up to age nine reduces both their cognitive and non-cognitive skills by 20 to 45% of a SD throughout adolescence. Our results are robust to a battery of sensitivity tests addressing, among others, concerns about pleiotropy and the maternal transmission of genes to her child.

Children’s internalizing behavior development is heterogeneously associated with the pace of epigenetic aging

“…We distinguished between baseline covariates determined at or before birth (parental education, gestational age, parity, sex, maternal age at birth, tobacco exposure, and diet quality index), environmental covariates associated with exposure before age 4 (parenting score and breastfeeding), and longitudinal covariates that were measured prior to the SDQ subscale in each period (financial difficulties, income and maternal depression). In our sensitivity analysis we also included polygenic risk scores (PGS) for depression and non-cognitive skills based on previous work by Demange et al, 2021, Turley et al, (2018, and computed as described in Menta et al (2021). Supplemental Appendix A, Sections C and D contain the description of the covariate selection process and model specification.…”