The Effect of Household Earnings on Child School Mental Health Designations: Evidence from Administrative Data

Abstract

We investigate the impact of household earnings shocks on in-school mental health designations in th context of the Great Recession using a unique data set of linked administrative educational and tax dat and propensity score matching. Relative to children who did not experience recessionary earnings losse the rate of new mental health designations among children with earnings losses was 0.5 percentage poin higher (20 percent) during the recession. The effect of experiencing a recessionary earnings loss : persistent and grows, especially among children who experienced the loss when they were aged 10 or younger.