Children’s Mental Disorders and Their Mothers’ Earnings: Implications for the Affordable Care Act of 2010

Patrick Richard*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

Children with emotional and behavioral problems (EBP) may have a negative effect on their mothers’ earnings because they require additional time for treatment. On the other hand, children with EBP require additional financial resources, which may increase their mothers’ earnings through an increase in work activities. This study examined the impact of children’s EBP on parental earnings, while accounting for omitted variable bias. This study found significant reductions of single mothers’ wage rate/annual earnings if their children have EBP. Conversely, children’s EBP increased their married mothers’ hourly wage. These results have important implications in terms of public policy such as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 in terms of expanding health insurance coverage to children with EBP to have access to appropriate treatment.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)156-171
Number of pages16
JournalJournal of Family and Economic Issues
Volume37
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jun 2016
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Affordable Care Act (ACA)
  • Earnings
  • Emotional and behavioral health
  • Endogeneity
  • Wages

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