Arbeitspapier
Beyond birth weight: The origins of human capital
Birth weight is the most widely used indicator of neonatal health. It has been consistently shown to relate to a variety of outcomes throughout the life cycle. Lower birth weight babies have worse health and cognition from childhood, lower educational attainment, wages, and longevity. But what's in birth weight? What are the aspects of the prenatal environment that birth weight actually reflect? In this paper we address this fundamental, yet currently unanswered, question, using unique data with fetal ultrasound measurements from two UK sources. We show that birth weight provides a distinctly limited picture of the uterine environment, capturing both positive and negative aspects of fetal health. Other newborn measures are more informative about different dimensions of the prenatal environment and more predictive of child growth and cognitive development, beyond birth weight. Additionally, patterns of fetal growth are predictive of child physical and mental health conditions, beyond health at birth. Our results are robust to correcting for measurement error, and to accounting for child- and mother-speci c unobserved heterogeneity. Our analysis rationalizes a common finding in the early origins literature, that prenatal events can influence postnatal development without affecting birth outcomes. It further clari es the role of birth weight and height as markers of early health, and suggests caution in adopting birth weight as the main target of prenatal interventions.
- Language
-
Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
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Series: IFS Working Papers ; No. W18/30
- Classification
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Wirtschaft
- Subject
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Birth Weight
Fetal Development
Prenatal Investments
Developmental Origins of Health
- Event
-
Geistige Schöpfung
- (who)
-
Conti, Gabriella
Hanson, Mark A.
Inskip, Hazel
Crozier, Sarah
Cooper, Cyrus
Godfrey, Keith
- Event
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Veröffentlichung
- (who)
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Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)
- (where)
-
London
- (when)
-
2018
- Handle
- Last update
-
10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET
Data provider
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Object type
- Arbeitspapier
Associated
- Conti, Gabriella
- Hanson, Mark A.
- Inskip, Hazel
- Crozier, Sarah
- Cooper, Cyrus
- Godfrey, Keith
- Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)
Time of origin
- 2018
Other Objects (12)
Beyond Birthweight: The Origins of Human Capital
Mother's education and birth weight
Mother's education and birth weight
Birth Weight in the Long-Run
Temporal trends in pregnancy weight gain and birth weight in Bavaria 2000–2007: slightly decreasing birth weight with increasing weight gain in pregnancy
Low birth weight and health expenditures from birth to late adolescence
Low birth weight and health expenditures from birth to late adolescence
Low birth weight in a heterogenic population
Significant Hypogammaglobulinemia in Very Low Birth Weight Infants
Predicting birth weight with conditionally linear transformation models
Still unequal at birth: Birth weight, socioeconomic status and outcomes at Age 9
Zelluläre und humorale Gerinnungsparameter bei Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW) und Extremely Low Birth Weight (ELBW)- Neonaten mit intraventrikulären Hirnblutungen (IVH)
Beyond Birthweight: The Origins of Human Capital
Mother's education and birth weight
Mother's education and birth weight
Birth Weight in the Long-Run
Temporal trends in pregnancy weight gain and birth weight in Bavaria 2000–2007: slightly decreasing birth weight with increasing weight gain in pregnancy
Low birth weight and health expenditures from birth to late adolescence
Low birth weight and health expenditures from birth to late adolescence
Low birth weight in a heterogenic population
Significant Hypogammaglobulinemia in Very Low Birth Weight Infants
Predicting birth weight with conditionally linear transformation models
Still unequal at birth: Birth weight, socioeconomic status and outcomes at Age 9
Zelluläre und humorale Gerinnungsparameter bei Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW) und Extremely Low Birth Weight (ELBW)- Neonaten mit intraventrikulären Hirnblutungen (IVH)
Beyond Birthweight: The Origins of Human Capital
Mother's education and birth weight
Mother's education and birth weight
Birth Weight in the Long-Run
Temporal trends in pregnancy weight gain and birth weight in Bavaria 2000–2007: slightly decreasing birth weight with increasing weight gain in pregnancy
Low birth weight and health expenditures from birth to late adolescence
Low birth weight and health expenditures from birth to late adolescence
Low birth weight in a heterogenic population
Significant Hypogammaglobulinemia in Very Low Birth Weight Infants
Predicting birth weight with conditionally linear transformation models
Still unequal at birth: Birth weight, socioeconomic status and outcomes at Age 9