I am a third-year PhD candidate in Applied Economics at Erasmus School of Economics. My research lies at the intersection of empirical labor and health economics, focusing on how institutional frameworks mediate the effects of health shocks on labor market outcomes and individual well-being.
Job market paper
Health After Birth: The Persistent Health Penalty of Becoming a Parent
This paper examines the medium-term health consequences of becoming a parent for both mothers and fathers in the Netherlands. Using administrative healthcare records linked to representative self-reported health data and a stacked difference-in-differences design, we track changes in health up to five years after first childbirth. We find a persistent increase in healthcare costs from the third year onward, driven primarily by inpatient care, with costs rising by 22 percent for mothers and 16 percent for fathers relative to pre-parenthood levels. These effects are concentrated in treatments related to respiratory, neurological, and cardiovascular conditions, consistent with higher exposure to communicable diseases, sleep deprivation, and stress. Self-reported data corroborate these findings, showing a deterioration in perceived health and increases in smoking and drinking behavior. This adverse effect on parental health is more pronounced among younger parents, suggesting that parenthood may widen pre-existing socioeconomic health inequalities. Finally, we find no systematic evidence that access to formal or informal caregiving support - through daycare availability, partner job flexibility, or proximity to grandparents - attenuates these effects, leaving open the question of whether, and to what extent, policy reforms can address this societal issue.
CV
The most recent version of the CV is available on the personal website.
References
- Prof. Pilar Garcia-Gomez
- Prof. Pierre Koning
- Prof. Hans van Kippersluis
Contact
Email: rossi@ese.eur.nl
Personal website: Jonathan Rossi