An Analysis of Sibling Correlations in Health Using Latent Variable Models

Timothy Halliday and Bhashkar Mazumder

No 8672, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We investigate sibling correlations in health status using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and Bayesian methods that allow us to estimate the covariance structure of a system of latent variable equations. Across a battery of outcomes, we estimate that between 50% and 60% of health status can be attributed to familial or neighborhood characteristics. Taking the principal component across all outcomes, we obtain a sibling correlation of about 53%. These estimates, which are larger than previous estimates of sibling correlations in health that rely on linear models, are more in-line with sibling correlations in income and suggest that health status, like other measures of socioeconomic success, is strongly influenced by family background. Therefore, efforts to improve the circumstances of families and communities may potentially lead to improved childhood health today and also reduce future health disparities.

Keywords: health; intergenerational mobility; sibling correlations; latent variable (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D3 I0 I12 J0 J62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2014-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published - published in: Health Economics, 2017, 26 (12), e108-e12

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Journal Article: An Analysis of Sibling Correlations in Health using Latent Variable Models (2017)
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