Birth Weight and Cognitive Development during Childhood: Evidence from India

Santosh Kumar, Kaushalendra Kumar, Ramanan Laxminarayan () and Arindam Nandi ()
Additional contact information
Kaushalendra Kumar: International Institute for Population Sciences
Ramanan Laxminarayan: Princeton University
Arindam Nandi: The Population Council

No 15124, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Health at birth is an important indicator of human capital development over the life course. This paper uses longitudinal data from the Young Lives survey and employs instrumental variable regression models to estimate the effect of birth weight on cognitive development during childhood in India. We find that a 10 percent increase in birth weight increases cognitive test scores by 8.1 percent or 0.11 standard deviations at ages 5-8 years. Low birth weight infants experienced a lower test score compared with normal birth weight infants. The positive effect of birth weight on a cognitive test score is larger for girls, children from rural households, and those with less-educated mothers. Our findings suggest that health policies designed to improve birth weight could improve human capital in resource-poor settings.

Keywords: children; PPVT; cognition; test score; birth weight; instrumental variable; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I15 I18 J13 J24 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 59 pages
Date: 2022-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-hea and nep-neu
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Birth Weight and Cognitive Development during Childhood: Evidence from India (2022)
Working Paper: Birth Weight and Cognitive Development during Childhood: Evidence from India (2019)
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