Is Biology Destiny? Birth Weight and Differential Parental Treatment

Amy Hsin ()

Demography, 2012, vol. 49, issue 4, 1385-1405

Abstract: Time diaries of sibling pairs from the PSID-CDS are used to determine whether maternal time investments compensate for or reinforce birth-weight differences among children. The findings demonstrate that the direction and degree of differential treatment vary by mother’s education. Less-educated mothers devote more total time and more educationally oriented time to heavier-birth-weight children, whereas better-educated mothers devote more total and more educationally oriented time to lower-birth-weight children. The compensating effects observed among highly educated mothers are substantially larger than the reinforcing effects among the least-educated mothers. The findings show that families redistribute resources in ways that both compensate for and exacerbate early-life disadvantages. Copyright Population Association of America 2012

Keywords: Parental investments; Child health; Differential treatment; Birth weight (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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DOI: 10.1007/s13524-012-0123-y

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