Season of Birth and Later Outcomes: Old Questions, New Answers

Kasey Buckles and Daniel Hungerman

The Review of Economics and Statistics, 2013, vol. 95, issue 3, 711-724

Abstract: Season of birth is associated with later outcomes; what drives this association remains unclear. We consider a new explanation: variation in maternal characteristics. We document large changes in maternal characteristics for births throughout the year; winter births are disproportionally realized by teenagers and the unmarried. Family background controls explain nearly half of season-of-birth's relation to adult outcomes. Seasonality in maternal characteristics is driven by women trying to conceive; we find no seasonality among unwanted births. Prior seasonality-in-fertility research focuses on conditions at conception; here, expected conditions at birth drive variation in maternal characteristics, while conditions at conception are unimportant. © 2013 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Keywords: births; seasonality; maternity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C10 J11 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (356)

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Working Paper: Season of Birth and Later Outcomes: Old Questions, New Answers (2008)
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