Some thoughts on (Breaking) Intergenerational Transmission of Mental Health [1]
In the coming series of blog posts, I will share some thoughts regarding a paper called (Breaking) Intergenerational Transmission of Mental Health by Aline Bütikofer, Rita Ginja, Krzysztof Karbownik, and Fanny Landaud. I finished this review as part of my MA Economics course, Economics of Education under the supervision of Prof. Uros Petronijevic.
I appreciate the opportunity to look closely at this paper as the topic is very close to my heart. The current research around intergenerational trauma is fascinating and growing fairly rapidly.
Introduction
Due to the incident of COVID-19, there has been a growing awareness of mental health and its implications on human capital and economies. This growing interest on mental health was further consolidated by the sizable expenditures estimates and projections on mental health disorders in both the of the United States and Norway in 2013 and 2019 respectively (Kinge et al., 2017; Roehrig, 2016; Abuse and Administration, 2014).
The true economic costs of mental health conditions include productivity and learning losses, forgone taxes, and externalities imposed on other individuals.
The paper, (Breaking) Intergenerational Transmission of Mental Health, uses information on healthcare visits from administrative data for the entire Norwegian population to explore the intergenerational association between the mental health of parents and their children, which is one of the externalities of mental health.
General idea of the paper
These are the 3 main focuses of the paper:
- Intergenerational Association of mental health between parents and their children.
- Intergenerational Association of mental health between extended family and children.
- Pilot Policy Impact – how targeting additional health resources toward the young children of adults with a mental health condition will mitigate the parent-child associations.
The paper includes extended family in the analysis because, first, these individuals could model behaviours, provide resources and expertise, or increase awareness about psychological and psychiatric issues of children. Second, stressors such as neglect, violence, or substance abuse could likewise spill over through family networks.
Therefore, by including extended family, authors believe the analysis will avoid an under-estimation of overall intergenerational persistence and over-estimation of intergenerational persistence of mental health between parents and children.