Impacts of childhood disability on family: Labor, marriage, fertility, and depression

Childhood disability has profound and far-reaching effects on family members. Using 20 years of administrative records from Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Research Database, we study cerebral palsy (CP), one of the most common causes of childhood disability. Leveraging CP’s congenital nature, its inability to be detected in utero, and its early diagnosis after birth, combined with rich administrative data, we employ an event study approach to examine its impacts on a wide range of parental outcomes, including labor supply, mental health, marital status, and fertility. Our findings show that having a child with CP reduces the mother’s likelihood of employment by 4.4 percentage points (pp), and increases the likelihood of divorce by 4.3 pp. The risk of maternal mental disorders is also increased. Additionally, we observe a significant long-term decline in fertility among affected families.