Health After Birth: The Persistent Health Penalty of Becoming a Parent

Abstract

This paper examines the medium-term health effects of becoming a parent for both mothers and fathers. We link Dutch administrative data on healthcare utilization to survey data on self-reported health and estimate stacked event study models that adjust for the non-random timing of fertility and heterogeneity by age at first birth. We find that parenthood leads to a persistent deterioration in physical health for both mothers and fathers, reflected in higher inpatient and outpatient costs and increased treatments for respiratory, cardiovascular, and nervous conditions. These adverse effects are concentrated among individuals with lower socioeconomic status and are substantially larger among younger first-time parents, even after conditioning on pre-parenthood health and socioeconomic characteristics. Access to formal or informal childcare does little to mitigate these effects for mothers, while daycare availability and grandparents’ proximity modestly protect fathers. Our findings document a persistent “health penalty” of parenthood that amplifies existing health inequalities and highlight the importance of considering parental health in family and social policy design.

market paper.