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Category: Project

Description: The study examines whether and why parental job loss may stifle early child development, relying on cohort data from the population of children born in Ireland in 2007/2008 (N = 6,303) and followed around the time of the Great Recession (2008-2013). A novel approach to mediation analysis is deployed, testing expectations from models of family investment and family stress. Parental job loss exacerbates problem behaviour at age 3 and 5 (.05-.08 SDs), via the channels of parental income and maternal negative parenting. By depressing parental income, job loss also hampers children’s verbal ability at age 3 (.03 SDs). This is tied to reduced affordability of formal childcare, highlighting a policy lever that might tame the intergenerational toll of job loss.