Research & Publication

Research

Parent Mental Health and Child Development (Job Market Paper):

This paper investigates the causal impact of a mother’s mental health on the cognitive and noncognitive development of children. Utilizing nationally representative data that follows a cohort of kindergartens to fifth grade, I employ a dynamic panel model designed to deal with the endogeneity of a mother’s mental health: time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity that causes correlation in multiple observations on the same individual and correlation with the unobserved heterogeneity results in mother’s mental health biases endogenously. I find negative effects on all assessed skills, math, reading, and noncognitive skills, with the most substantial effects observed in noncognitive skills. The results show one standard deviation increase in the mother’s depression decreases 0.27,  0.47,  and 0.74 in the child’s math, reading, and noncognitive test scores, respectively. Typically 1 year of school learning is 0.25 in math, 0.20 in reading. and 0 to 0.4 for noncognitive skills. Additionally, the effect is more pronounced among single mothers, especially in children’s math test scores.

The Impact of COVID-19 on the Persistence of Mental Health Among First-Year College Students (Under Review)

Analyze the lasting effect of Covid-19 pandemic on anxiety and depression symptoms of college students whose first- year of college was interrupted by the pandemic. Study the effect of Covid-19 stressors and socioemotional supports using longitudinal data.

Inter-generational Socio-economic Status Changes (Working Paper)

Investigate the factors that drive the changes using the Great Smoky Mountain Study with a specific emphasis on the inclusion of under-represented youth in national mental health research.

Impact of Trade Policy on Labor Market (Working Paper)

Use propensity score matching and Difference-in-Difference to examine the impact of trade policy on the labor market of related industries. 

Publication


North Carolina Local Educational Attainment Collaborative Report, Sherika Hill, Robin Jenkins, Lu Huang, Angie Jenkins, myFutureNC, 07/2023.


North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation Child Care and Economy Recovery Across North Carolina During

Covid-19. Iheoma U. Iruka, Sherika Hill, Elizabeth Love, and Lu Huang, Early Childhood Foundation, 11/2022.