Abstract
We estimate the effects of a shock in mental health — postpartum depression — on the mother’s social interactions 1–3 years after her child’s birth. We address the potential endogeneity of depression by establishing the temporal ordering of events, incorporating rich control variables, conducting falsification tests, and estimating two-stage models. We find no evidence that postpartum depression affects social interactions — as characterized by participation in various types of community organizations and regular religious attendance — during the child’s third year of life, although it may cause a short-lived decline in social interactions in the first year.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Eline Aas and the other participants at the Fourth Workshop on Social Capital and Health in Padova, Italy in October 2012 for helpful comments and to Taťána Čepková for excellent research assistance.
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Corman, H., Noonan, K. & Reichman, N. Effects of Maternal Depression on Social Interactions. Eastern Econ J 40, 226–248 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1057/eej.2014.5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/eej.2014.5