Parental unemployment can have detrimental effects on life chances of the children, and thereby reinforce inequalities across generations. Despite a substantial literature documenting that the health of infants at birth can have large and long-lasting consequences, research on intergenerational unemployment effects on infant health is scant. This study fills the gap using high-quality register data from Sweden, including 1.5 million siblings born between 1996 and 2017. To account for selection into unemployment, we employ sibling comparison designs that exploit variation in siblings’ exposure to parental unemployment, thereby accounting for stable but unmeasured confounding at the level of families. We find small and not consistently significant effects of maternal unemployment, and no effects of paternal unemployment. Our results also suggest that pre-existing social disadvantages—low education, migration background, and dual parental unemployment—are not associated with more adverse intergenerational unemployment effects. The discussion of our findings situates these results in the context of a relatively generous and egalitarian welfare state.

中文翻译：

---

父母失业对婴儿健康的代际影响：来自瑞典登记数据的证据

父母失业会对孩子的生活机会产生不利影响，从而加剧几代人之间的不平等。尽管有大量文献证明婴儿出生时的健康会产生巨大而持久的影响，但关于代际失业对婴儿健康影响的研究却很少。本研究使用来自瑞典的高质量登记数据填补了空白，其中包括 1996 年至 2017 年间出生的 150 万兄弟姐妹。为了解释失业选择，我们采用兄弟姐妹比较设计，利用兄弟姐妹对父母失业的暴露程度的变化，从而解释在家庭层面上稳定但无法测量的混杂。我们发现产妇失业的影响很小且并非始终显着，而父亲失业没有影响。我们的结果还表明，先前存在的社会劣势——教育程度低、移民背景和双亲失业——与更不利的代际失业影响无关。对我们调查结果的讨论将这些结果置于一个相对慷慨和平等的福利国家的背景下。