Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/161362 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 10739
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This study exploits plausibly exogenous variation from the youngest sibling's school eligibility to estimate the effects of parental work on the weight outcomes of older children in the household. Data come from the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth linked to the Child and Young Adult Supplement. We first show that mothers' work hours increase gradually as the age of the youngest child rises, whereas mothers' spouses' work hours exhibit a discontinuous jump at kindergarten eligibility. Leveraging these insights, we develop an instrumental variables model that shows that parents' work hours lead to larger increases in children's BMI z-scores and probabilities of being overweight and obese than those identified in previous studies. We find no evidence that the impacts of maternal and paternal work are different. Subsample analyses find that the effects are concentrated among advantaged households, as measured by an index involving education, race, and mother's marital status.
Subjects: 
childhood obesity
maternal employment
women's labor supply
JEL: 
I12
J22
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
277.56 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.