The Great Recession and Mothers' Health

We use longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study to investigate the impacts of the Great Recession on the health of mothers. We focus on a wide range of physical and mental health outcomes, as well as health behaviour. We find that increases in the unemployment rate decr...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Economic journal (London) 2015-11, Vol.125 (588), p.F311-F346
Main Authors: Currie, Janet, Duque, Valentina, Garfinkel, Irwin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Demographics
FEATURE: ECONOMIC SHOCKS, EARLY LIFE CIRCUMSTANCES AND LATER LIFE OUTCOMES
Great Recession
Health behavior
Mothers
Recessions
Studies
Unemployment
Womens health
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We use longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study to investigate the impacts of the Great Recession on the health of mothers. We focus on a wide range of physical and mental health outcomes, as well as health behaviour. We find that increases in the unemployment rate decrease self-reported health status and increase smoking and drug use. We also find evidence of heterogeneous impacts. Disadvantaged mothers – African American, Hispanic, less educated and unmarried – experience greater deterioration in their health than advantaged mothers – those who are white, married and college educated.
ISSN:0013-0133
1468-0297
DOI:10.1111/ecoj.12239