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Title: Causes and Consequences of Early Life Health
Resulting in 1 citation.
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Case, Anne Paxson, Christina |
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Causes and Consequences of Early Life Health NBER Working Paper 15637, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2010. Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15637.pdf Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79 Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Keyword(s): Birthweight; British Cohort Study (BCS); Child Health; Cognitive Development; Data Quality/Consistency; Digit Span (also see Memory for Digit Span - WISC); Disability; Earnings; Educational Attainment; Health and Retirement Study (HRS); Height; Life Course; Methods/Methodology; Modeling, Fixed Effects; NCDS - National Child Development Study (British); Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Pre/post Natal Behavior; Self-Perception Profile for Children (SPPC); Siblings; Test Scores/Test theory/IRT We examine the consequences of childhood health for economic and health outcomes in adulthood, using height as a marker of health in childhood. After reviewing previous evidence, we present a conceptual framework that highlights data limitations and methodological problems associated with the study of this topic. We present estimates of the associations between height and a range of outcomes, including schooling, employment, earnings, health and cognitive ability, using data collected from early to late adulthood on cohort members in five longitudinal data sets. We find height is uniformly associated with better economic, health and cognitive outcomes--a result only partially explained by the higher average educational attainment of taller individuals. We then turn to the NLSY79 Children and Young Adult Survey to better understand what specific aspects of early childhood are captured by height. We find, even among maternal siblings, taller siblings score better on cognitive tests and progress through school more quickly. Part of the differences found between siblings arises from differences in their birth weights and lengths attributable to mother's behaviors while pregnant. Taken together, these results support the hypothesis that childhood health influences health and economic status throughout the life course. |
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Bibliography Citation
Case, Anne and Christina Paxson. "Causes and Consequences of Early Life Health." NBER Working Paper 15637, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2010. |