https://aub.ie/MilitaryREACH-Lakdawala2022

Lakdawala, L. K., & Bharadwaj, P. (2022). The relationship between parental disability and child outcomes: Evidence from veteran Families. PLOS ONE, 17(11), Article e0275468. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0275468

This study investigated the associations between parental disability and child outcomes related to school, disability status, and work (if 16 or older) across Veteran and nonVeteran families. Data were from a census questionnaire, the American Community Survey (ACS), between 2008–2019. Data on 481,725 children from Veteran families and 5,126,450 children from non-Veteran families were examined. Children with disabled Veteran and non-Veteran parents were compared across outcomes. For Veteran families, child outcomes were compared based on the severity of the parent’s disability (based on the extent of the disability due to military service and described as “highly disabled” or “less-disabled”). Overall, in both Veteran and nonVeteran families, children of disabled parents were more likely to be 2 or more years behind the appropriate grade for their age and to have disabilities themselves.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0275468

Veterans
Physical health
Children
Parents

Multiple branches

Veteran

Child of a service member or veteran

Childhood (birth - 12 yrs)
Adolescence (13 - 17 yrs)

Lakdawala, Leah K., Bharadwaj, Prashant

We examine the relationship between parental disability and child outcomes in the American Community Survey. We focus on families with veteran parents, for whom parental disability is a direct result of service-related activities and thus is more plausibly exogenous to child outcomes than other forms of parental disability. Using the service connected disability rating (SCDR) as a measure of the severity of veteran disability, we document a gradient in child outcomes with respect to parental disability (even conditional on having a disabled parent). Children with more severely disabled parents are more likely to be late for grade, less likely to be in private school, and more likely to have disabilities themselves. These results lend meaningful insight to broader populations; we find similar associations between parental disability and child outcomes in non-veteran families. We provide evidence consistent with two broad mechanisms: first, parental disability reduces parental labor supply and thus household income (even net of transfers) and second, children—especially older children—allocate time away from work and schooling to provide care for disabled parents.

PLOS

Article
REACH Publication

Department of Economics, Wake Forest University, LKL
Department of Economics, University of California, San Diego, PB