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Maria L. Andersen

@mlandersen.com

1.7K followers 329 following 20 posts

🔗 mlandersen.com PhD fellow at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. Researching the links between family formation, health, and employment using population-based registries. Also fan of long-distance trail running🌲 Health • Labour • Family Econ

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Maria L. Andersen @mlandersen.com · 20/11/2025

New preprint📈📉 What happens to health and work when people become grandparents? Using Norwegian register data on all individuals born 1950-1960, we use event-study models comparing grandparents to not-yet grandparents to track changes in health and labour supply. 🔗 www.ssrn.com/abstract=571...

Figure showing event-study plots centred around the birth of one's first grandchild. The left plot shows health changes, the right shows labour market changes (separated by grandparent gender).

The image shows the following abstract:

The Cost of Caring: Gendered Health and Labour Market Effects of Grandparenthood

While the effects of the transition to parenthood are well-researched, less is known about how the transition to grandparenthood affects health and labour market outcomes. Using comprehensive Norwegian register data covering the entire population born between 1950 and 1960, we examine the effects of first-born grandchildren born during 2007–2018. Employing event-study models with person-year records, we compare grandparents to not-yet grandparents. Our findings reveal a sharp increase in the likelihood of respiratory infections during the first two years of grandparenthood, with infections increasing by 56% for women and 31% for men. Additionally, grandparenthood modestly reduces the likelihood of doctor’s visits related to mental disorders (4.5%) and cardiovascular health (3.3%). Grandmothers also see a decline in musculoskeletal-related visits (3.8%). These health-related changes coincide with notable gendered effects on labour market participation. Ten years after the birth of their first grandchild, employed women are 12% less likely to hold full-time positions compared to a 2% reduction for men. Overall, our findings demonstrate that the transition to grandparenthood significantly reshapes health and economic outcomes for both women and men. The larger effects observed for women likely reflect their greater involvement in informal childcare provision. Our results underscore the intersection of health, family dynamics, and gendered labour market behaviours in late adulthood.

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Maria L. Andersen @mlandersen.com · 14/11/2024

New preprint 📈📉 🧠👶🏻 We explored the link between parenthood and mental health in over 2M Norwegians using primary health care records. We found that parents generally experienced fewer mental disorders, even after accounting for factors like education and marital status. 🔗 doi.org/10.1101/2024...

Parenthood, Mental Disorders, and Symptoms Through Adulthood: A Total Population Study

ML Andersen*, HF Sunde, RK Hart, FA Torvik

*Corresponding author(s). E-mail(s): MariaLyster.Andersen@fhi.no;

Abstract
During recent decades, parenthood has declined in many Western countries. Simultaneously, mental disorders have become more prevalent. We investigated the link between parenthood and mental health in the entire Norwegian-born population aged 31 to 80 from 2006 to 2019 (n=2,234,087). We used logistic regression models on national register data and included sibling- and twin-matched analyses to address unobserved confounders. Parenthood was associated with a lower risk of mental disorders, including depressive and anxiety disorders. For symptoms related to mental disorders, fathers had a reduced risk, while mothers had a slightly elevated risk. Mental health disparities between parents and non-parents were greater among men than among women and persisted across adulthood, before reducing at older ages. Our main findings were largely consistent in sibling- and twin-matched designs. The disparity between parents and non-parents increased over the study period, suggesting stronger selection into parenthood. Our findings highlight parenthood as a significant indicator of mental health inequalities, with its importance growing over time.

Keywords: Mental health, parenthood, childlessness, social inequality, fertility

JEL Classification: I14, J13, J16

Two figures. Top figure (a) shows the prevalence of mental disorders and symptoms by parent-status, age, and gender. X-axis is age, and y-axis is prevalence in percent. The prevalence curves for mental disorders are higher for the childless than for parents. For symptoms, the prevalence curve is higher for childless men than fathers. For women, the two lines are much closer. The curve for childless women is higher until approximately age 40, then the two curves are similar until age 70. After 70, the prevalence curve for mothers is above the curve for childless women.

Bottom figure (b) shows estimated odds ratios for a variety of logistic and conditional logistic regression models. For mental disorders, all estimated odds ratios are below 1, meaning that parents have a lower likelihood of having a mental disorder. For symptoms, the estimated odds ratios vary, sometimes above 1 (for women) and sometimes below 1 (for men). The magnitude of the estimates differ between the models of symptoms and disorders. For disorders, estimated odds ratios are in the range 0.44-0.71, while for symptoms the range is 0.80-1.19.

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