https://yannikobeloer.github.io/tag/eating-disorders/Eating disordersHugo Blox Builder (https://hugoblox.com)en-ushttps://yannikobeloer.github.io/media/icon_hubdace6dcebafca2d7da352ab77204559_139100_512x512_fill_lanczos_center_3.pnghttps://yannikobeloer.github.io/tag/eating-disorders/https://yannikobeloer.github.io/project/parental-consequences/Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://yannikobeloer.github.io/project/parental-consequences/<h2 id="abstract">Abstract</h2> <p>Child health shocks can generate substantial family-level costs, especially when treatment requires considerable parental involvement. This paper studies the effect of adolescent eating disorders on parental absences from work, health, and labor-market outcomes using linked Swedish registry data. Diagnoses for severe eating disorders are increasingly prevalent, and treatment is mostly given in outpatient care, often involving significant family caregiving. To study the short-run effects, I utilize a stacked difference-in-differences design that exploits variation in age at diagnosis. Both mothers and fathers sharply increase leave from work to care for a sick child. These responses are strongly gendered: mothers are more than twice as likely to take care-related leave in the six months after the diagnosis. In each month during the same period, mothers are 13.5% more likely to take at least two weeks of sick leave themselves and 7.5% more likely to receive mental health-related prescriptions. In contrast, no significant health-related effects are observed for fathers. To study the long-run and wider labor-market effects, I match treated families to otherwise comparable families without any eating disorder diagnoses. Maternal wage income decreases by 3.7% in the year of diagnosis and does not return to pre-diagnosis levels until two years after the diagnosis. There is no evidence for paternal earnings losses, even in the short run. Heterogeneity analyses by pre-diagnosis characteristics indicate smaller differences between parents when fathers were more active in caregiving, while relative income plays a more limited role. These patterns are less consistent with household specialization than with gendered household preferences. Overall, results highlight sizable and unequal parental costs when a severe adolescent health shock generates new demand for household care. These costs, however, do not translate into long-run labor-market scarring.</p> <p>Draft coming soon!</p>