The well-being of children.

• Position: National Bureau of Economic Research's Program on Children

The NBER's Program on Children met in Cambridge on April 2 to discuss recent research. Program Director Janet Currie, also of the University of California, Los Angeles, selected the following papers for discussion:

Christopher Ruhm, NBER and University of North Carolina, Greensboro, "Parental Leave Entitlements and Children's Health"

Joshua Artgrist, NBER and MIT, and Jonathan Johnson, MIT, "Effects of Parental Absence on Families: Evidence from the Persian Gulf War"

Tasneem Chipty, Brandeis University, and Ann Dryden Witte, NBER and Wellesley College, "Effects of Information Provision in a Vertically Differentiated Market" Phillip B. Levine, NBER and Wellesley College, and David Zimmerman, Williams College, "The Effects of Welfare on Child Well-Being"

Karen Norberg, NBER and Boston University, "When Does Mother Go to Work?: Infant Health, Development, and Temperament as Predictors of Mother's Labor Force Participation in the First Five Years"

Ruhm asks whether rights to paid parental leave improve pediatric health, as measured by birth weights and infant or child mortality rates. He uses data for nine European countries from 1969 to 1994, comparing changes in the pediatric outcomes to those of senior citizens, whose health is not expected to be affected by parental leave. He finds that more generous leave rights reduce the death rates of infants and young children. The magnitudes of the estimated effects are substantial. Further, a much stronger negative relationship exists between leave durations and postneonatal mortality or fatalities between the first and fifth birthday than between leave durations and perinatal mortality, neonatal deaths, or the incidence of low birth weight.

Angrist and Johnson estimate the effect of Gulf War deployment of men and women on their spouses' employment, their divorce rates, and their children's outcomes. Data from the 1992 Survey of Officers and Enlisted Personnel show that personnel deployed to the Gulf spent about 6 more months away from home than nondeployed military personnel. The estimates suggest that deployment of male soldiers reduced their wives' employment rates, probably as a result of added child care responsibilities. Deployment of female soldiers did not change their husbands' employment rates, but was associated with higher divorce rates. A year without a parent appears to increase the incidence of temporary handicaps in children by about 1.2 percentage points.

Chipty and Witte study the...