Seminar in Empirical Microeconomics - The Long Term Effects of Prenatal and Infancy Home Visiting for Disadvantaged Families: Experimental Evidence from Germany
Time
Thursday, 2. February 2023
12:00 - 13:15
Location
G421
Organizer
Chair of Economic Policy
Speaker:
Malte Sandner (Technical University Nürnberg)
The Long Term Effects of Prenatal and Infancy Home Visiting for Disadvantaged Families: Experimental Evidence from Germany
Abstract: This study exploits a randomized controlled trial to investigate the effects of a German home visiting program (Pro Kind) for disadvantaged families, which starts during pregnancy and continues until the second birthday, on child and maternal outcomes at children’s age 8, six years after the end of the home visits. We use data from several sources to assess children’s and maternal mental health and life satisfaction, children’s cognitive and social development and preferences, maternal abusive parenting behavior, welfare use, and employment. For children, we find that Pro Kind has several positive effects on behavior. For mothers, Pro Kind reduces abusive parenting and improves life satisfaction and mental health. Additionally, mothers in the treatment group have more second births and are less months employed than in the control group indicating that mother in the treatment group focus more on their family life. Overall, the results suggest that the Pro Kind intervention has long lasting effects and changed the life of the participating families sustainably in many domains which may lead to a high benefit/cost rate of the program.