New research from the Department of Economics at the University of Oxford suggests that the death of a parent in adulthood can have effects that reach far beyond the immediate shock of bereavement. Published in the May issue of the American Economic Review, the study finds that parental loss is associated with persistent declines in earnings, alongside signs of worsening mental health. Women with young children experience a comparatively larger earnings decline, likely due to the loss of informal childcare
Because parental bereavement is something nearly everyone experiences at some point in adult life, the findings raise wider questions about how grief is understood at work and in public policy. The researchers argue that bereavement should not be seen only as a private experience, but also as something that can shape labour market outcomes, economic security, gender inequality and care responsibilities over time.
Using population-wide Danish administrative data, the researchers examined sudden, first parental deaths in adulthood and compared those affected with similar people who had not experienced the same loss at that point in time. This allowed them to trace how earnings, employment, mental health and family support changed in the years following bereavement.
Five years after losing a parent, men's earnings had fallen by around 2 percent on average, while women's had fallen by around 3 percent, relative to those who did not experience parental loss. The study also found evidence of worsening mental health following bereavement, including increased use of psychological support, mental health-related prescriptions and opioid prescriptions.
For women with young children, the effect was larger still. Their earnings fell by as much as 4 per cent after parental loss, a pattern the researchers suggest may reflect the loss of informal childcare often provided by grandparents. The paper argues that this matters not only for individual families, but for the wider economy, because a nearly universal life event can have lasting effects on work, care and wellbeing across the population.
This question of support may be especially important beyond Denmark. Denmark's comprehensive welfare state provides extensive public support, including healthcare, childcare and income protections. Against that backdrop, the effects of parental bereavement identified in this paper are likely to be substantially larger in countries with longer mental health waiting times, higher childcare costs, and lower public benefits - including the UK. Dr Mathias Fjællegaard Jensen, co-author of the study, added: "Our findings from Denmark should be read as a conservative estimate. In countries like the UK - where mental health waiting lists are long, formal childcare is expensive, and benefit levels relatively lower - the earnings and wellbeing effects of parental loss are likely to be significantly more severe."
Dr Jensen said: "Losing a parent is one of the most personal and painful experiences many of us will go through. What this study shows is that the effects of bereavement can reach into other parts of life for years afterwards, including people's working lives, through mental health and family support. Because this is something nearly everyone experiences, it matters not only for how we understand grief, but for how employers and policymakers think about support at moments of loss."
The researchers say the findings suggest there is room to think more seriously about support for bereaved adults. In the paper, they point to a number of possible responses, including grief support groups, automatic psychological screening following the death of a parent, paid bereavement leave for adult children, and better access to out-of-hours childcare where grandparent care is lost.
They also note that relatively few policies currently exist to address the long-term effects of parental bereavement in adulthood. While the study is based on Danish data, the authors argue that the mechanisms identified in the paper are likely to matter in other settings too, particularly where public childcare, eldercare or mental health support is less readily available.
