Work

The Impact of Childhood Health on Adult Labor Market Outcomes

Year: 2009

Type: article

Abstract: This paper examines impacts of childhood health on socioeconomic status (SES) outcomes observed during adulthood: levels and trajectories of education, family income, household wealth, individual earnings, and labor supply. The analysis is conducted using panel data that collect these SES measures using a sample who were originally children and are now well into their adult years. Since all siblings are in the panel, unmeasured family and neighborhood background effects can be controlled for. With the exception of education, poor childhood health has a quantitatively large effect on all of these outcomes. Moreover, these estimated effects are larger when unobserved family effects are controlled.

Source: The Review of Economics and Statistics

DOI: 10.1162/rest.91.3.478

Author: James P Smith

Institution: RAND Corporation

Language: English

Topic: Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Good health and well-being, Reduced inequalities, Decent work and economic growth

Open Access status: green

Funder: National Institute on Aging