Sick of Becoming a Parent

The paper presented in this ZEW Research Seminar deals with the effect of family formation on parents’ mental health. Having a child increases parents’ risk of having deteriorated mental health requiring inpatient hospital care. The effect is significantly larger for fathers; in particular among couples with traditional gender norms. Examining outcomes more related to health investment, the authors find a reduction in mothers’ sickness absence for mental health conditions, but no effects for fathers. Also, for prescription of drugs for the nervous system, they find a similar dip in mothers’ consumption during the first years after childbirth. This reduction for mothers is likely caused by increased support from maternity care and child healthcare services. However, mothers’ consumption of drugs for the nervous system increases over time and surpasses that of fathers 4 years after the child is born. Their results suggest that men and women exhibit different health investment behaviors; that the mortality-morbidity paradox is reinforced by parenthood, and also that gender norms play an important role driving these behaviors.