Research
Work in Progress
Occupational Tasks and Mental Health
How do occupations shape workers’ mental health? This project combines Danish administrative data with occupational task information from O*NET to study how workplace characteristics affect mental health and to what extent differences across occupations reflect workplace effects or worker sorting.
Mental Health Challenges Among Teachers: The Role of the Workplace
with Miriam Gensowski and Ingo Isphording
Teacher mental health is an increasingly salient issue with societal and economic implications for educational quality and student outcomes. This study examines the role of schools as workplaces in generating heterogeneity in teachers’ mental health. Using comprehensive population-wide Danish register data linking teachers to schools, students, and health care utilization, we document large and persistent differences in mental health outcomes across schools. We attribute these differences to causal workplace effects rather than selection, leveraging a quasi-experimental mover design: teachers’ mental health deteriorates after moving to schools with worse mental health environments, with effects unfolding over the subsequent years. These effects are robust to coinciding life events, such as childbirth or changes in cohabitation status. Auxiliary analyses based on variation over time in student composition find that higher shares of female students and students from higher-SES households are associated with improved teacher mental health. Yet, observable characteristics explain only a small share of variation, suggesting that unobserved dimensions of workplace quality, such as leadership and organizational climate, play a central role as potential drivers of heterogeneity in teacher mental health.
Publications
The Effect of Compulsory Education on Non-Cognitive Skills: Evidence from Low- and Middle-Income Countries
with Thomas Dohmen
Published in Economics of Education Review, 107 (2025): 102654.
Personality traits, preferences, and attitudes significantly influence labor market outcomes, and these non-cognitive skills are shaped by the social environment. While curriculum interventions can impact these skills, the effect of compulsory education on non-cognitive skills is less well understood. This study investigates the impact of extending compulsory education by examining educational reforms in four low- and middle-income countries. Utilizing cross-sectional data from the World Bank’s 2012/2013 initiative, we analyze the within-country variation in compulsory education years. Our findings indicate that increased compulsory education decreases emotional stability, grit, hostile attribution bias, patience, and willingness to take risks, while enhancing openness to experience and alternative solution or consequential thinking.