Dynamic and heterogeneous effects of sibling death on children’s outcomes

Abstract

This paper explores the effects of experiencing the death of sibling on children’s developmental outcomes. Recent work ha shown that experiencing a sibling death is common and long-ter effects are large. We extend understanding of these effects by es timating dynamic effects on surviving siblings’ cognitive and socio emotional outcomes, as well as emotional and cognitive support b parents. Using the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey o Youth 1979 (CNLSY79), we find large initial effects on cognitive an noncognitive outcomes that decline over time. We also provide ev idence that the effects are larger if the surviving child is older an less prominent if the deceased child was either disabled or an infan suggesting sensitive periods of exposure. Auxiliary results sho that parental investments in the emotional support of survivin children decline following the death of their child.