Parental job security and children's health

Abstract

The effect of job security on workers' well-being and health has already been discussed in the literature. Nevertheless, little is known about its impact on family life and children's health. This paper investigates the effect of parental job security on children's physical and mental health. Using data from the Spanish National Health Survey (SNHS), we estimate the causal impact of holding a secure labor contract. To address endogeneity, we rely on the exogenous variation in employment status induced by the 2006 Spanish Labor Reform, which sought to reduce the incidence of temporary employment among female and young workers. Combining Difference-in-Differences and an Instrumental Variable strategy, we find that job security significantly increases children's general health. Moreover, we show that this effect is mainly concentrated in younger children and that job security also has a positive impact on females' mental health.