Are Children’s Socio-Emotional Skills Shaped by Parental Health Shocks?

Abstract

Child skills are shaped by parental investments. Health shocks to parents can affect these investments and their children’s skills. We estimate causal effects of severe parental health shocks on child socio-emotional skills. Drawing on a large-scale survey linked to hospital records, we find that socio-emotional skills of 11–16-year-olds are robust to these shocks, except for small reductions in conscientiousness. We estimate short-run effects with child fixed effects and dynamics around shocks with event studies. In the long run, we find some evidence of buildup of effects that may be rationalized with shocks having a delayed impact on children’s skills.