In a new study from The Institute for Fiscal Studies, researchers found that parental employment instability during the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on children’s socio-emotional development.
The study suggests that the “disruption to parents’ experiences in the labor market created by lockdown restrictions” has resulted in lasting impacts on children’s mental health.
“The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted many aspects of children’s lives, with impacts on their social and emotional development as well as their educational attainment,” the report states.
“Parents’ labor market experiences during the pandemic could have affected both a household’s resources and the quality and quantity of time parents and children spent together.”
Among the key findings of the study, researchers noted that “overall, parents reported that their children’s social and behavioral difficulties increased during the first year of the pandemic. Nearly half of parents reported that their child had more socio-emotional difficulties in February 2021 than a year earlier, while around one in six reported fewer challenges.”
Interestingly, the research also indicated that “parents of girls and younger children, and those who were furloughed, were more likely to report worsening in their children’s socio-emotional skills.”
Approximately “half of families in our sample saw no change in their labor market status during the first year of the pandemic,” the report indicates.
However, the other half of families who experienced a shift in labor market status had a diverse range of experiences.
These experiences ranged from unemployment, furloughs, or shorter bursts of furlough interruptions.
The report found a concerning pattern that “the socio-emotional skills of children whose families had experienced at least one transition in the labor market were nearly 20% of a standard deviation lower than those of children whose families had stable labor market experiences.”
This suggests that the economic stability of the family, more than the specific state of employment or unemployment, was a crucial determinant for the emotional development of children.
The researchers also highlighted that “labor market instability increased parental stress and led to declines in both actual and expected future earnings.”
This finding indicates that such economic uncertainty and instability can have far-reaching implications for children’s emotional development.
In conclusion, the report underlined the necessity of providing economic protection for families during periods of uncertainty to mitigate its potential impacts on children.
The researchers argue that “our findings demonstrate the importance of protecting families during periods of significant economic uncertainty in order to reduce the significant human capital and well-being costs such uncertainty can have not only for the directly affected adults but also for their children.”
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) is the U.K.’s leading independent economics research institute, according to the group’s website.
