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Author: Wilson, Sarah L.
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Wilson, Sarah L.
Essays on the Determinants of Substance Use and Mental Health Among Mothers and Adolescents
Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Economics, Clemson University, 2020
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT)
Keyword(s): Alcohol Use; Anxiety; Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Births, Repeat / Spacing; Children, Mental Health; Depression (see also CESD); Family Size; Health, Mental/Psychological; Mothers, Health; Substance Use

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

In the first chapter, I explore the impact of the number of children on maternal depression and drug use. There is an extensive theoretical literature identifying the negative effects of the number of children on the outcomes for mothers. While several studies have examined the effects on labor market and physical health outcomes, little research to date has considered effects on mental health and substance use. In order to perform this analysis, I use data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth and a variety of empirical strategies. To address the endogeneity of fertility decisions, I use two natural experiments that exogenously increase the number of children--parity-specific twin births and the gender composition of the first two children. My results provide suggestive evidence that an increase in family size at the third birth parity leads to an increase in a mother's probability of depression. The main findings indicate that a third birth induced by a twin birth or the same-sex composition of the first two children increases a mother's probability of alcohol consumption by about 5.0 percentage points. These estimated effects on alcohol consumption are greater for married mothers. By contrast, I do not find strong evidence of increased marijuana use after the birth of an additional child.

Chapter two shifts in focus from exploring the mother's outcomes to evaluating children's mental health outcomes. A large body of theoretical and empirical research explores the causal effect of the number of siblings on various dimensions of children's outcomes. I estimate the impact of increases in sibship size on children's mental disorders using matched mother-child data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth. Using an instrumental variables technique, my findings provide no substantial evidence in support of the traditional quantity-quality fertility trade-off. By exploiting the panel data and using fixed effects to account for omitted factors, my findings show that an additional younger sibling is detrimental for a child's anxious/depressed index and likelihood of visiting a psychiatrist for a mental disorder. The estimated effects are greater for female and non-black children. This relationship is larger in magnitude in the long-term, as compared to a shorter time horizon.

Bibliography Citation
Wilson, Sarah L. Essays on the Determinants of Substance Use and Mental Health Among Mothers and Adolescents. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Economics, Clemson University, 2020.