This special issue of the Journal of Human Resources showcases an emerging literature on the economics of child mental health. Child mental health is one of the most important determinants of children’s future economic outcomes. The papers in this volume tackle several critical questions including: Does the increase in reported child mental health problems represent an underlying increase in the incidence of these conditions? Are poor economic conditions in childhood a cause of mental health problems, and how much does this contribute to intergenerational associations in mental health? Are there effective interventions? And what role can schools play? By bringing together a broad range of research focused on the critical issue of child mental health, this volume hopes to encourage new research in this emerging area.
--Janet Currie, Princeton University, Special Issue Guest Editor
Table of Contents
Child Mental Health, Family Circumstance, and Long-Term Success
The Effect of Household Income
We use data from a long-running experiment in which American Indian households received income transfers from a casino while other households did not. Using a difference in difference analysis, we find that the treated children had fewer depression and anxiety symptoms at age 30. In adulthood, individuals with more years of treatment exposure also had greater economic well-being around age 30. The untreated children, in adulthood, showed strong persistence in measures of mental health from adolescence through age 30, while in treated children persistence was greatly attenuated. The estimated effects are slightly stronger for treated children who experienced fewer mental health symptoms before the transfers began at ages 16 and 21, but by age 30 all affected children showed reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression and improved economic outcomes.
Domestic Violence Reports and the Mental Health and Well-being of Victims and Their Children
Manudeep Bhuller, Gordon B. Dahl, Katrine V. Løken and Magne Mogstad
We study the costs associated with domestic violence (DV) in Norway by comparing outcomes before and after a DV report, using those who will be victimized in the future as controls. A DV report is associated with increased mental health diagnoses for both victims and their children and reduced financial resources. Victims experience marital dissolution, more doctor visits, lower employment, reduced earnings and higher use of disability insurance. Their children are more likely to receive child protective services and commit a crime. Using a complementary RD design, we find declines in children’s test scores and grade completion.
To What Extent are Trends in Teen Mental Health Driven by Changes in Reporting?
The Example of Suicide-Related Hospital Visits
Adriana Corredor-Waldron and Janet Currie
Rising reports of suicidal behaviors in children and adolescents have led to the recognition of a youth mental health crisis. However, reported rates can be influenced by access to screening and changes in reporting conventions, as well as by changes in social stigma. Using data on all hospital visits in New Jersey from 2008-2019, we investigate two inflection points in adolescent suicide-related visits and show that a rise in 2012 followed changes in screening recommendations, while a sharp rise in 2016-2017 followed changes in the coding of suicidal ideation. Rates of other suicidal behaviors including self-harm, attempted suicides, and completed suicides were essentially flat over this period. These results suggest that underlying suicide-related behaviors among children, while alarmingly high, may not have risen as sharply as reported rates suggest. Hence, researchers should approach reported trends cautiously.
The Effect of Household Earnings on Child School Mental Health Designations: Evidence from Administrative Data
Lauren Jones, Mark Stabile, Kourtney Koebel and Jill Furzer
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.