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The Impact of Parental Income and Education on the Health of their Children

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Author Info
Doyle, Orla
Harmon, Colm
Walker, Ian

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Abstract

This paper investigates the robustness of recent findings on the effect of parental background on child health. We are particularly concerned with the extent to which their finding that income effects on child health are the result of spurious correlation rather than some causal mechanism. A similar argument can be made for the effect of education - if parental education and child health are correlated with some common unobservable (say, low parental time preference) then least squares estimates of the effect of parental education will be biased upwards. Moreover, it is very common for parental income data to be grouped, in which case income is measured with error and the coefficient on income will be biased towards zero and there are good reasons why the extent of bias may vary with child age. Fixed effect estimation is undermined by measurement error and here we adopt the traditional solution to both spurious correlation and measurement error and use an instrumental variables approach. Our results suggest that the income effects observed in the data are spurious.

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 5359.

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Date of creation: Dec 2005
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5359

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Related research
Keywords: child health; intergenerational transmission;

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I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Chevalier, Arnaud & Harmon, Colm & O’Sullivan, Vincent & Walker, Ian, 2005. "The Impact of Parental Income and Education on the Schooling of Their Children," IZA Discussion Papers 1496, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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  2. Michael A. Shields & Paul Frijters & John Haisken-DeNew, 2004. "Estimating the causal effect of income on health: Evidence from post-reunification Germany," Econometric Society 2004 Australasian Meetings 151, Econometric Society.
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  4. Mark B. Stewart, 2004. "Semi-nonparametric estimation of extended ordered probit models," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 4(1), pages 27-39, March. [Downloadable!]
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  5. Paul Frijters & John P. Haisken-DeNew & Michael Shields, 2003. "Estimating The Causal Effect of Income on Health: Evidence from Post Reunification East Germany," CEPR Discussion Papers 465, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Jonathan Meer & Douglas L. Miller & Harvey S. Rosen, 2003. "Exploring the Health-Wealth Nexus," NBER Working Papers 9554, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Janet Currie, 2004. "Viewpoint: Child research comes of age," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 37(3), pages 509-527, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. Anne Case & Darren Lubotsky & Christina Paxson, 2002. "Economic Status and Health in Childhood: The Origins of the Gradient," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1308-1334, December. [Downloadable!]
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  15. Janet Currie & Mark Stabile, 2003. "Socioeconomic Status and Child Health: Why Is the Relationship Stronger for Older Children?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1813-1823, December. [Downloadable!]
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  17. Lorraine Dearden & Javier Ferri & Costas Meghir, 2000. "The effect of school quality on educational attainment and wages," IFS Working Papers W00/22, Institute for Fiscal Studies. [Downloadable!]
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  18. Paul Contoyannis & Andrew M. Jones & Nigel Rice, 2004. "The dynamics of health in the British Household Panel Survey," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(4), pages 473-503. [Downloadable!]
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  24. Colm Harmon & Hessel Oosterbeek & Ian Walker, 2003. "The Returns to Education: Microeconomics," Journal of Economic Surveys, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 17(2), pages 115-156, 04. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  25. Doyle, Orla & Harmon, Colm & Walker, Ian, 2005. "The Impact of Parental Income and Education on the Health of their Children," CEPR Discussion Papers 5359, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Eriksson, Tor & Bratsberg, Bernt & Raaum, Oddbjørn, 2005. "Earnings persistence across generations: Transmission through health?," Memorandum 35/2005, Oslo University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  2. Doyle, Orla & Harmon, Colm & Walker, Ian, 2007. "The Impact of Parental Income and Education on Child Health : Further Evidence for England," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 788, University of Warwick, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Orla Doyle & Colm Harmon & Ian Walker, 2005. "The Impact of Parental Income and Education on the Health of their Children," IZA Discussion Papers 1832, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Maarten Lindeboom & Ana Llena-Nozal & Bas van der Klaauw, 2006. "Parental Education and Child Health: Evidence from a Schooling Reform," IZA Discussion Papers 2516, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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