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We investigate the impact of public childcare provision on the incidence of severe child maltreatment. For identification, we exploit a reform that expanded early childcare in Germany, generating large temporal and spatial variation in childcare coverage at the county level. Using high-quality administrative data covering all reported cases of child maltreatment in Germany by county and year, we find that an increase in childcare slots by one percentage point in a county reduced child maltreatment cases leading to out-of-home placement by about 1%. Our results suggest that the provision of universal public childcare may be more cost effective than previously thought.
AbstractA large body of literature has shown that the gender wage gap is small in the first years after graduation and increases gradually with age, largely because of family decisions, often a penalty caused by childbirth. However, the gender wage gap immediately after graduation has received less attention. Using a unique dataset that links 5000 university graduates with master's degrees or equivalent from a large German university to detailed employment records from the German social security register, we specifically analyze the gender wage gap at the first job and its dynamics during the initial years of their careers after graduation. We find that a significant gender wage gap already exists in the first job after graduation, even before most young individuals make family decisions. However, this gender wage gap decreases in the first year after entering the labor market and then increases slowly over time. We attribute this initial decrease in the gender wage gap to female university graduates experiencing greater returns from firm and occupational changes than their male counterparts. This suggests that women may use these changes to address skill mismatches, which are more common among women than men in their first job.
ImportanceHome-based interventions targeting socially disadvantaged families may help to improve maternal and child health. Only a few studies have investigated how different staffing models affect early home visiting program outcomes.ObjectiveTo assess the effects of 2 staffing models of an early childhood intervention on mother and child outcomes.Design, Setting, and ParticipantsThe baseline assessment of this randomized trial was conducted between November 2006 and December 2009 in 15 municipalities in Germany. The follow-up assessment at offspring age 7 years was carried out by interviewers masked to treatment conditions from April 2015 to December 2017. Data analysis was performed from March to August 2023. Pregnant women with no previous live birth, low-income, and at least 1 additional psychosocial risk factor were eligible. A total of 1157 women were referred to the study by gynecologists, psychosocial counseling services, or employment agencies; 755 were randomized to treatment conditions (2 intervention groups and 2 control groups); and 525 completed the follow-up.InterventionsBased on the Nurse-Family Partnership program, women assigned to the intervention groups received visits by either a midwife (midwife-only model) or by a team consisting of a social worker and a midwife (tandem model) until child age 2 years. Women assigned to control groups had access to the standard health and social services.Main Outcomes and MeasuresAverage treatment effects (ATEs) on the following primary outcomes were assessed using adjusted regression models with inverse probability weighting: developmental disorders, child behavioral problems, adverse, neglectful and abusive parenting, maternal mental health, and life satisfaction.ResultsThe mean (SD) age at follow-up was 29.6 (4.36) years for mothers and 7.55 (0.75) years for children; 272 (52.2%) of the children were female. Mothers in the tandem model reported fewer internalizing child behavioral problems compared to their control group (ATE, 2.98; 95% CI, −5.49 to −0.47; absolute reduction, 13.3 percentage points). Beneficial intervention effects were found in the midwife-only group on abusive parenting (ATE, −4.00; 95% CI, −6.82 to −1.18), parenting stress (ATE, −0.13; 95% CI, −0.20 to −0.06), and maternal mental health burden (ATE, −3.63; 95% CI, −6.03 to −1.22; absolute reduction, 6.6 percentage points in depressive symptoms), but not in the tandem group.Conclusions and RelevanceBoth staffing models produced positive intervention effects, with more effects seen in the midwife-only model. These insights can guide future early childhood intervention designs and may help improve health care for socially disadvantaged families.Trial RegistrationGerman Clinical Trials Register Identifier: DRKS00007554
This paper presents the results of a randomized study of a home visiting program implemented in Germany for low-income, first-time mothers. Besides improving child health and development, a major goal of the program is to improve the participants' economic self-sufficiency and family planning. I use administrative data from the German social security system and detailed telephone surveys to examine the effects of the intervention on maternal employment, welfare benefits, household composition, well-being, and fertility behavior. The study reveals that the intervention decreased maternal employment by 9.3 percentage points and increased subsequent births by 6.4 percentage points, in part through a reduction in abortions.
Despite long-term interest in whether welfare benefits motivate fertility, evidence from research has not been consistent. This paper contributes new evidence to this debate by investigating the fertility effect of a German welfare reform. The reform decreased the household income of families on welfare by 18% in the first year after the birth of a baby. Using exclusive access to German social security data on over 460,000 affected women, our analysis finds that the reform leads to a fertility reduction of 6.8%. This result implies that for mothers on welfare, fertility has an income elasticity of 0.38, which is much smaller than that of general populations reported in the literature. Our findings suggest that welfare recipients’ fertility reacts less strongly to financial incentives than the fertility of overall populations.
Despite long-term interest in whether welfare benefits motivate fertility, evidence from research has not been consistent. This paper contributes new evidence to this debate by investigating the fertility effect of a German welfare reform. The reform decreased the household income of families on welfare by 18% in the first year after the birth of a baby. Using exclusive access to German social security data on over 460,000 affected women, our analysis finds that the reform leads to a fertility reduction of 6.8%. This result implies that for mothers on welfare, fertility has an income elasticity of 0.38, which is much smaller than that of general populations reported in the literature. Our findings suggest that welfare recipients’ fertility reacts less strongly to financial incentives than the fertility of overall populations.
AbstractThis study examines the immediate and intermediate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the well-being of two high school graduation cohorts (2020 and 2021) and how changes in well-being affect students’ educational plans and outcomes. Our unique panel data on 3697 students from 214 schools in 8 German federal states contain prospective survey information on three dimensions of well-being: mental health problems, self-rated health, and life satisfaction. Data is collected several months before (fall 2019), shortly before and soon after (spring 2020) as well as several months after (fall/winter 2020/21) the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Applying difference-in-differences designs, random effect growth curve models, and linear regression models, we find that school closures had a positive immediate effect on students’ well-being. Over the course of the pandemic, however, well-being strongly declined, mainly among the 2021 graduation cohort. We show that a strong decline in mental health is associated with changes in educational and career plans and transition outcomes. As adverse life experiences in adolescence are likely to accumulate over the life course, this study is the first to exhibit potential long-lasting negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on education and careers of young individuals.
War, international spillovers, and adolescents: Evidence from Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022
(2024)
Using novel longitudinal data, this paper studies the short- and medium-term effects of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 on social trust of adolescents in Germany. Comparing adolescents who responded to our survey shortly before the start of the war with those who responded shortly after the conflict began and applying difference-in-differences (DiD) models over time, we find a significant decline in the outcome after the war started. These findings provide new evidence on how armed conflicts influence social trust and well-being among young people in a country not directly involved in the war.
Given the lasting positive effects of prenatal and infancy home visiting in the United States on disadvantaged mothers and children at school age, we analyzed the follow-up effects of a German home visiting program (ProKind). We hypothesized improvements in 3 domains at child age 7 years: (1) child development and life satisfaction, (2) maternal mental health and life satisfaction, and (3) adverse parenting, abusive parenting, and neglectful parenting.METHODSWe conducted a randomized controlled trial of home visiting, enrolling 755 pregnant, low-income women with no previous live births. The intervention comprised 32.7 home visits by family midwives and/or social pedagogues until child age 2 years. Assessments were completed on 533 7-year-old firstborn offspring to evaluate 8 primary hypotheses.
We found significant positive effects for 4 of the 8 primary hypotheses. Mothers in the intervention group reported fewer behavioral problems among their children in the Child Behavior Checklist (effect size [ES] = 0.21; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.03 to 0.38), less child abusive parenting (ES = 0.19; 95% CI: 0.00 to 0.37), fewer maternal mental health problems (ES = 0.25; 95% CI: 0.07 to 0.43), and higher maternal life satisfaction (ES = 0.25; 95% CI: 0.07 to 0.43). Additional preregistered subgroup analyses regarding child sex revealed larger effects for boys and mothers of boys.CONCLUSIONSThe results suggest that in a western European welfare state, home visiting targeting disadvantaged mothers has lasting effects in important outcome domains. Therefore, home visits also appear to be an effective and efficient public health intervention in European settings.
Early Home Visiting Delivery Model and Maternal and Child Mental Health at Primary School Age
(2024)
We study the impacts of a prenatal and infancy home visiting program targeting disadvantaged families on mental health outcomes, assessed through diagnostic interviews. The program significantly reduced the prevalence of mental health conditions for both mothers and children, measured at primary-school age, and broke the intergenerational association of these conditions. The impacts are predominantly associated with a particular delivery model, wherein a single home visitor interacts with the family, as opposed to a model involving two home visitors.