Mental Health Trajectories across Parenthood Transitions: A Longitudinal Cross-National Study

Sandrine Metzger , Trinity College Dublin
Arnstein Aassve, Bocconi University
Pablo Gracia, Trinity College Dublin
Letizia Mencarini, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy

This study examines changes in mental health over the first and second parenthood transition across gender and socioeconomic groups in three countries. Previous research has examined parenthood's impact on individual well-being but lacks comparisons of mental health changes during parenthood transitions across national contexts within a large-scale longitudinal framework. Moreover, prior studies have omitted cross-national assessments of mental health dynamics related to gender and socioeconomic status over parenthood transitions, although the normative constraints associated with different socioeconomic backgrounds may result in distinct, gender-specific effects. Using long-running household panels from Australia (HILDA; N=13,612), Germany (GSOEP; N=21,148), and the UK (UKHLS; N=24,369), we employ fixed effects models with discrete-time trends to analyse gendered mental health trajectories and examine variations by socioeconomic groups across countries. Preliminary results suggest that: (1) the first childbirth consistently increases mental health for women; (2) the second childbirth negatively affects the mental health of Australian men and women in the short- and long-term as well as German women in the medium-term, whereas British men and women are unaffected; (3) socioeconomic heterogeneity in these effects vary by country and gender, with more apparent disadvantages for higher socioeconomic status women in the UK. Overall, higher birth parity is associated with greater variation in gendered mental health across countries. Additionally, the first transition into parenthood is differentially associated with mental health across socioeconomic groups for women, contingent on the national context. Future steps will include exploring whether couple-level mechanisms explain these variations in mental health across gender, socioeconomic groups, and countries.

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 Presented in Session 71. Mental and Cognitive Health