Birth Weight and Cognitive Development during Childhood: Evidence from India

Santosh Kumar, Kaushalendra Kumar, Ramanan Laxminarayan and Arindam Nandi
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Santosh Kumar Gautam

No 358, GLO Discussion Paper Series from Global Labor Organization (GLO)

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 score 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 boys, children from rural or poor 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: Birth weight; Test score; Cognition; PPVT; Children; Instrumental variable; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I15 I18 J13 J24 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-neu
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/199014/1/GLO-DP-0358.pdf (application/pdf)

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 (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:glodps:358

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