Infant Health, Cognitive Performance and Earnings: Evidence from Inception of the Welfare State in Sweden
Sonia Bhalotra,
Martin Karlsson,
Therese Nilsson (therese.nilsson@nek.lu.se) and
Schwarz, N.;
Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers from HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York
Abstract:
We estimate impacts of exposure to an infant health intervention trialled in Sweden in the early 1930s using purposively digitised birth registers linked to school catalogues, census files and tax records to generate longitudinal data that track individuals through four stages of the life-course, from birth to age 71. This allows us to measure impacts on childhood health and cognitive skills at ages 7 and 10, educational choice during young adulthood, employment, earnings and occupation at age 36-40, and pension income at age 71. Leveraging quasi-random variation in eligibility by birth date and birth parish, we estimate that exposure was associated with substantial increases in earnings and (public sector) employment among women, alongside no improvements for men. This appears to be related to the intervention having made it more likely that primary school test scores for girls were in the top quintile of the distribution and, related, that they attended secondary school. The greater investments of women in education are consistent with their comparative advantage in cognitive tasks, but opportunities are also likely to have played a role. Our sample cohorts were exposed to a massive expansion of the Swedish welfare state, which created unprecedented employment opportunities for women.
Keywords: Infant health; early life interventions; cognitive skills; education; earnings; occupational choice; programme evaluation; Sweden (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H41 I15 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-hea and nep-lma
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.york.ac.uk/media/economics/documents/hedg/workingpapers/1806.pdf Main text (application/pdf)
Related works:
Journal Article: Infant Health, Cognitive Performance, and Earnings: Evidence from Inception of the Welfare State in Sweden (2022)
Working Paper: Infant health, cognitive performance and earnings: Evidence from inception of the welfare state in Sweden (2022)
Working Paper: Infant Health, Cognitive Performance and Earnings: Evidence from Inception of the Welfare State in Sweden (2021)
Working Paper: Infant health, cognitive performance and earnings: evidence from inception of the welfare state in Sweden (2019)
Working Paper: Infant Health, Cognitive Performance and Earnings: Evidence from Inception of the Welfare State in Sweden (2018)
Working Paper: Infant Health, Cognitive Performance and Earnings: Evidence from Inception of the Welfare State in Sweden (2017)
Working Paper: Infant Health, Cognitive Performance and Earnings: Evidence from Inception of the Welfare State in Sweden (2016)
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:yor:hectdg:18/06
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers from HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York HEDG/HERC, Department of Economics and Related Studies, University of York, York, YO10 5DD, United Kingdom. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jane Rawlings (jane.rawlings@york.ac.uk).