We examine the effects of Covid-19 and related restrictions on individuals with dependent children in Germany. We specifically focus on the role of day care center and school closures, which may be regarded as a “disruptive exogenous shock” to family life. We make use of a novel representative survey of parental well-being collected in May and June 2020 in Germany, when schools and day care centers were closed but while other measures had been relaxed and new infections were low. In our descriptive analysis, we compare well-being during this period with a pre-crisis period for different groups. In a difference-in-differences design, we compare the change for individuals with children to the change for individuals without children, accounting for unrelated trends as well as potential survey mode and context effects. We find that the crisis lowered the relative well-being of individuals with children, especially for individuals with young children, for women, and for persons with lower secondary schooling qualifications. Our results suggest that public policy measures taken to contain Covid-19 can have large effects on family well-being, with implications for child development and parental labor market outcomes.

我们研究了 Covid-19 和相关限制对德国有受抚养子女的个人的影响。我们特别关注日托中心和学校关闭的作用，这可能被视为对家庭生活的“破坏性外源冲击”。我们利用了 2020 年 5 月和 6 月在德国收集的一项新颖的代表性家长福祉调查，当时学校和日托中心关闭，但其他措施放松，新增感染病例较低。在我们的描述性分析中，我们将不同群体在此期间的福祉与危机前时期进行比较。在双重差异设计中，我们将有孩子的个体的变化与没有孩子的个体的变化进行比较，考虑到不相关的趋势以及潜在的调查模式和背景影响。我们发现，这场危机降低了有孩子的人的相对福祉，特别是有小孩的人、妇女和具有初中学历的人。我们的研究结果表明，为遏制 Covid-19 而采取的公共政策措施可以对家庭福祉产生重大影响，并对儿童发展和父母劳动力市场结果产生影响。