Children's Health and the Family
Linda N. Edwards and
Michael Grossman
No 256, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc
Abstract:
The objective of this paper is to define the relationship between a number of family characteristics and the health of white children aged 6 to 11 years residing in those families. The partial effects of family income on health are1l and seldom statistically significant. Indeed, some health problems -- high blood pressure, allergies, and tension -- are more likely to occur among children from high income families. The general finding of small partial income effects is supported by analysis of gross health differences between children from lower and higher income families. In those cases where significant gross health difference. do exist between children from these two income classes, decomposition of these gross differences shows them to be attributable in large part to factors other than income itself. The finding that differences in health related solely to income are smaller than commonly believed implies that policies to improve the well-being of children via income transfers, such as those advocated by the recent Carnegie Council on Children, would have, at best, very small effects on health. Indeed, the most important conclusion of our study is that the present tendency to base government child health programs on simplistic notions that income is the primary source of differences in children's health will not lead towards fruitful or successful public policy regarding children's health.
Date: 1978-07
Note: EH
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)
Published as Edwards, Linda N. and Michael Grossman. "Children's Health and the Family." Advances in Health Economics and Health Services Research, edited by Richard M. Schettler, Vol. 2, Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press. (1981), pp. 35-84.
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w0256.pdf (application/pdf)
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:0256
Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w0256
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().