A causal analysis of mother’s education on birth inequalities

Silvia Bacci (), Francesco Bartolucci and Luca Pieroni ()

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: We propose a causal analysis of the mother’s educational level on the health status of the newborn, in terms of gestational weeks and weight. The analysis is based on a finite mixture structural equation model, the parameters of which have a causal interpretation. The model is applied to a dataset of almost ten thausand deliveries collected in an Italian region. The analysis confirms that standard regression overestimates the impact of education on the child health. With respect to the current economic literature, our findings indicate that only high education has positive consequences on child health, implying that policy efforts in education should have benefits for welfare.

Keywords: birthweight; finite mixtures; intergenerational health trasmission; latent class model; structural equation models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 I12 I21 C30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-hea
Date: 2012-04-12
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:38754

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