Cesarean Sections for High-Risk Births: Health, Fertility and Labor Market Outcomes

Hanna Mühlrad ()

No 2018:35, Working Papers from Lund University, Department of Economics

Abstract: Despite the fact that Cesarean section (C-section) is the most commonly performed surgery in a number of industrialized countries, little is known about the long-term consequences for the mothers and children involved. In this study, I use a sample of high-risk births—namely, breech births, in which the fetus is presented with its head upward instead of downward—to study the causal effect of C-sections on child health and on the health, fertility and labor market responses for mothers. Because selection into C-section may be endogenous, I exploit an information shock to doctors in 2000, in which new scientific evidence about the benefits of planned C-sections for breech births led to a sharp 23% increase in planned C-sections. Using Swedish registry data, I find that having a C-section improves child health in both the short and long run, indicated by higher Apgar scores at birth and fewer nights hospitalized during ages 1-7. I find little evidence to suggest any significant impact on maternal health, future fertility or maternal labor market outcomes.

Keywords: Cesarean Section; Fertility; Maternal Health; Child Health; Birth Technology; Labor Market Outcomes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I11 I12 I38 J13 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 56 pages
Date: 2018-10-29
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://lucris.lub.lu.se/ws/portalfiles/portal/195177512/WP18_35 Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2018_035

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Lund University, Department of Economics School of Economics and Management, Box 7080, S-22007 Lund, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Iker Arregui Alegria ().