Mothers’ life-cycle events play a crucial role in shaping their children’s outcomes. This paper examines how maternal exposure to adverse economic conditions during youth influences both newborn outcomes and the early childhood development of their future offspring.

Our estimation strategy leverages cohort and regional variation in unemployment rates experienced by mothers at the age of 16, many years prior to giving birth to their first child. We find that children born to first-time mothers who experienced unfavourable youth economic conditions face poorer birth outcomes, such as increased risks of preterm birth and low birth weight, with gender-specific vulnerabilities influenced by maternal educational levels. By age three, these conditions are linked to negative effects on children’s health and developmental outcomes, including adaptive behavioural skills. We suggest that these negative effects could be caused by delayed fertility and are driven among highly educated mothers, who are more likely to postpone childbearing. We conclude that maternal initial labour market conditions spill over into their children’s early development, contributing to the intergenerational transmission of inequalities.

Co-authors

Dr Seraphim Dempsey, Economic and Social Research Institute, IE