@article{ref1,
title="What the COVID-19 school closure left in its wake: evidence from a regression discontinuity analysis in Japan",
journal="Journal of public economics",
year="2021",
author="Yokoyama, Izumi and Takaku, Reo",
volume="ePub",
number="ePub",
pages="ePub-ePub",
abstract="To control the spread of COVID-19, the national government of Japan abruptly started the closure of elementary schools on March 2, 2020, but preschools were exempted  from this nationwide school closure. Taking advantage of this natural experiment, we  examined how the proactive closure of elementary schools affected various outcomes  related to children and family well-being. To identify the causal effects of the  school closure, we exploited the discontinuity in the probability of not going to  school at a certain threshold of age in months and conducted fuzzy regression  discontinuity analyses. The data are from a large-scale online survey of mothers  whose firstborn children were aged 4 to 10 years. The results revealed a large  increase in children's weight and in mothers' anxiety over how to raise their  children. On the outcomes related to marital relationships, such as the incidence of  domestic violence and the quality of marriage, we did not find statistically  significant changes. These findings together suggest that school closures could have  large unintended detrimental effects on non-academic outcomes among children.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0047-2727",
doi="10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104364",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104364"
}