Womb to wisdom: Early-life exposure to midwifery laws and later-life disability

Hamid Noghanibehambari, Hesamaldin Bagheri, Mostafa Toranji, Hoa Vu and Nasrin Tavassoli

Social Science & Medicine, 2025, vol. 372, issue C

Abstract: Previous research documented that midwifery service quality improvements lead to improving maternal and infants’ health outcomes. However, little is known about its influence for later-life outcomes including disability. This paper explores the potential effects of early-life exposure to the establishment of midwifery laws across US states on later-life disability outcomes. Midwifery laws were enacted during the late 19th and early 20th century and required midwives to gain formal education and training to obtain a license in order to legally practice. We use decennial census data over the years 1970–2000 and implement a difference-in-difference method and show that being born in a reform state is associated with significant reductions in various measures of disability, including work disability, cognitive difficulty, ambulatory difficulty, self-care difficulty, and a proxy for severe mental health. We also find significant increases in education, socioeconomic scores, housing wealth, and income. We further discuss the policy implications of the results.

Keywords: Disability; Midwifery; Health education; Public policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H75 I18 J13 J18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.117973

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