Arbeitspapier

Maternal Age and Infant Health

We study the effects of maternal age on infant health. Age at birth has been increasing for the past several decades in many countries, and correlations show that health at birth is worse for children born to older mothers. In order to identify causal effects, we exploit school entry cutoffs and the empirical finding that women who are older for their cohort in school tend to give birth later. In Spain, children born in December start school a year earlier than those born the following January, despite being essentially the same age. We show that as a result, January‐born women finish school later and are (several months) older when they marry and when they have their first child. We find no effect on educational attainment. We then compare the health at birth of the children of women born in January versus the previous December, using administrative, population‐level data, and following a regression discontinuity design. We find small and insignificant effects on average weight at birth, but the children of January‐born mothers are more likely to have very low birthweight. We interpret our results as suggestive of a causal effect of maternal age on infant health, concentrated in the left tail of the birthweight distribution, with older mothers more likely to give birth to (very) premature babies.

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Series: CINCH Series ; No. 2021/06

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Thema
Maternal age
Infant health
School cohort

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Borra, Cristina
González, Libertad
Patiño, David
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
University of Duisburg-Essen, CINCH - Health Economics Research Center
(wo)
Essen
(wann)
2021

DOI
doi:10.17185/duepublico/74847
Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:43 MEZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.

Objekttyp

  • Arbeitspapier

Beteiligte

  • Borra, Cristina
  • González, Libertad
  • Patiño, David
  • University of Duisburg-Essen, CINCH - Health Economics Research Center

Entstanden

  • 2021

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