Critical periods during childhood and adolescence: a study of adult height among immigrant siblings

Gerard van den Berg, Petter Lundborg, Paul Nystedt and Dan-Olof Rooth
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Paul Nystedt: Nyköping University

No 2011:5, Working Paper Series from IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy

Abstract: We identify the ages that constitute critical periods in children’s development towards their adult health status. For this we use data on families migrating into Sweden from countries that are poorer, with less healthy conditions. Long-run health is proxied by adult height. The relation between siblings’ ages at migration and their heights after age 18 allows us to estimate the causal effect of conditions at certain ages on adult height. Moreover, we compare siblings born outside and within Sweden. We apply fixed-effect methods to a sample of about 9,000 brothers. We effectively exploit that for siblings the migration occurs simultaneously in calendar time but at different developmental stages (ages). We find some evidence for a critical period at age 9. The effects are stronger in families migrating from poorer countries but weaker if the mother is well-educated.

Keywords: Early-life conditions; migration; parental education; adult health; height retardation; age; fetal programming; developmental origins (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 I10 I12 I18 I20 I30 J10 N30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2011-02-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Published as van den Berg, Gerard J., Petter Lundborg, Paul Nystedt and Dan-Olof Rooth, 'Critical periods during childhoood and adolescence' in Journal of the European Economic Association, 2014, pages 1521-1557.

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Related works:
Working Paper: Critical Periods during Childhood and Adolescence: A Study of Adult Height among Immigrant Siblings (2012)
Working Paper: Critical Periods During Childhood and Adolescence: A Study of Adult Height Among Immigrant Siblings (2009)
Working Paper: Critical Periods During Childhood and Adolescence: A Study of Adult Height Among Immigrant Siblings (2009)
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