TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Sevim, Dilek
AU  - Baranov, Victoria
AU  - Bhalotra, Sonia R.
AU  - Maselko, Joanna
AU  - Biroli, Pietro
        TI  - Socioemotional Skills in Early Childhood: Evidence from a Maternal Psychosocial Intervention
        PY  - 2023/Feb/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 15925
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp15925
        AB  - We study the formation of social and emotional skills in the first three years of life, and investigate the impact of a cluster-randomized peer-led psychosocial intervention targeting perinatally depressed mothers in rural Pakistan. The intervention significantly improved maternal mental health, especially among mothers of boys. It resulted in imprecisely estimated increases in parental investment, and modest but transitory improvements in child's socioemotional skills. A descriptive analysis of mechanisms reveals that the intervention modified the production function of children's skills, by lowering the productivity of maternal mental health in the first 12 months of life. It moved outcomes for depressed women closer to outcomes for women not depressed during pregnancy.

        KW  - child development
KW  - RCT
KW  - socioemotional
KW  - stress
KW  - mental health
KW  - technology of skill formation
KW  - gender
        ER  -