The Long-Term Labor Market Effects of Parental Unemployment

Schmidpeter, Bernhard

doi:10.17848/wp20-322

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…More broadly, our results speak to previous studies showing how income losses due to job displacement might be more consequential when timed around a specific parental investment in formal education. While previous studies ascertained this for secondary and tertiary education (Coelli, 2011;Schmidpeter, 2020), we provide evidence for pre-school education in the form of childcare enrolment.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 52%

“…Out of the remaining 7,063 complete records, we further excluded 406 households in which either the mother or father of the study child never held a full‐time job. We follow previous studies on the (intergenerational) effects of job loss (e.g., Jacobson, LaLonde, & Sullivan, 1993 ; Schmidpeter, 2020 ) and limit our analysis to households with a minimum attachment to the labor market.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similar results have been found in other contexts (Coelli, 2011 ; Gregg et al., 2012 ) and for other aspects of school performance such as grade retention (Stevens & Schaller, 2011 ). On college enrolment, evidence also pointed to small negative effects of paternal job loss (Hilger, 2016 ), whereas findings for adult‐life earnings have been more mixed (Bratberg, Nilsen, & Vaage, 2008 ; Gregg et al., 2012 ; Hilger, 2016 ; Oreopoulos et al., 2008 )—hinting perhaps at a dilution of the influence of parental job loss over children’s lifetime (but see, in contrast, Schmidpeter, 2020 ).…”

Section: Background: Job Loss From Parents To Childrenmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Job losses around specific stages of children’s educational trajectories might have a stronger impact. Schmidpeter ( 2020 ) found that parental unemployment, occurring around the time of early tracking in the Austrian school system (age 10), is most harmful for children’s university completion chances and future earnings, the latter being measured as late as age 37 (see also Coelli, 2011 ). Focusing on the stages before and around school entry in our paper, the relevant educational investment decision likely involves formal childcare.…”

Section: Background: Job Loss From Parents To Childrenmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Parental Job Loss and Early Child Development in the Great Recession

Mari

Keizer

2021

Child Development

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The study examines whether and why parental job loss may stifle early child development, relying on cohort data from the population of children born in Ireland in 2007-2008 (N = 6,303) and followed around the time of the Great Recession (2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013). A novel approach to mediation analysis is deployed, testing expectations from models of family investment and family stress. Parental job loss exacerbates problem behavior at ages 3 and 5 (.05-.08 SDs), via the channels of parental income and maternal negative parenting. By depressing parental income, job loss also hampers children's verbal ability at age 3 (.03 SDs). This is tied to reduced affordability of formal childcare, highlighting a policy lever that might tame the intergenerational toll of job loss.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 52%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Background: Job Loss From Parents To Childrenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Background: Job Loss From Parents To Childrenmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Parental Job Loss and Early Child Development in the Great Recession

Mari

Keizer

2021

Child Development

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“…For the US, parental layoff just before graduation, rather than soon after, was found to decrease chances of college enrolment (Pan and Ost 2014). In an institutional context more similar to ours (Austria), university enrolment chances were also found to decrease following a spell of parental unemployment occurring just before tracking across secondary schools at around age ten (Schmidpeter 2020).…”

supporting

confidence: 59%

The Timing of Parental Unemployment, Insurance, and Children's Education

Mari¹,

Keizer²,

Gaalen³

2022

Preprint

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It is not unusual for children to have a parent who faces unemployment at one time or another. Such timing, particularly within the school year, might obstacle children’s educational transitions. We further theorise and test how unemployment’s timing effects vary depending on private and public insurance mechanisms, respectively parental wealth and unemployment benefits.We rely on administrative data from the Netherlands, a country with a stratified educational system and wide wealth disparities, on cohorts of students born between 1992 and 1998, thus covering the late 2000s and early 2010s (> 45,000 paternal/maternal unemployment spells). With a negative control design, we find that a spell of paternal unemployment occurring just before the high-stakes test in 6th grade decreases children’s chances of enrolling in the secondary-school tracks that prepare for Dutch higher education, but only in families with lower wealth. Effects are moderate, amounting to 4 percentage points or 15% of the baseline. Lacking private insurance, these effects reduce (increase) when households receive larger (smaller) unemployment benefit amounts, particularly above median values. Suggestive evidence points to depressed test performance as part of the mechanism at play. For enrolment in postsecondary school, we do not find evidence, differently, that children are more or less affected depending on when parents enter unemployment. Findings can inform when to target remedial interventions, highlighting how and for whom the timing of disruptive events may exert negative intergenerational effects.

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