Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

Working Papers,
University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Economics

No 09-15: Family Structure Changes and Children´s Health, Behavior, and Educational Outcomes

Astrid Würtz Rasmussen ()
Additional contact information
Astrid Würtz Rasmussen: Department of Economics, Aarhus School of Business, Postal: FRICHSHUSET , Hermodsvej 22 , DK 8230 Aabyhoej, Denmark

Abstract: More and more children do not grow up in traditional nuclear fam- ilies. Instead, they grow up in single-parent households or in fami- lies with a step-parent. Hence, it is important to improve our under- standing of the impact of "shocks" in family structure due to parental relationship dissolution on children. In this study I empirically test whether children are traumatized both in the short and the long run by shocks in the family structure during childhood. I focus on edu- cational, behavioral, and health outcomes. A population sample of Danish children born in January to May 1985 is used for the analysis. The empirical cross-sectional analysis indicates a negative relation be- tween the number of family structure changes and children’s health, behavior, and educational outcomes. These results are con…rmed by a di¤erences-in-di¤erences analysis of health outcomes. This suggests that there is not only a selection e¤ect, but also a causal e¤ect on children of shocks in the family structure.

Keywords: Family structure; child outcomes; health; crime; education

JEL-codes: D13; I12; I21; J12

46 pages, January 1, 2009

Full text files

09-15_awu.pdf PDF-file 

Download statistics

Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Helle Vinbaek Stenholt ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ().

This page generated on 2024-02-05 17:10:50.