IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/hecrev/v12y2022i1d10.1186_s13561-022-00393-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dose birthweight matter to quality of life? A comparison between Japan, the U.S., and India

Author

Listed:
  • Chisako Yamane

    (Hiroshima University of Economics)

  • Yoshiro Tsutsui

    (Kyoto Bunkyo University)

Abstract

Background Birthweight is a widely accepted indicator of infant health and has significant and lasting associations. Several studies have found that low and high birthweight have significant negative associations with adult health. A new study in the field of social sciences has established that birthweight has significant negative associations with not only adult health but also social attributes, such as income and occupation; however, no studies have evaluated the associations between birthweight and quality-of-life (QOL) attributes such as happiness. Methods In this study, we use data from Japan, the U.S., and India, collected in 2011, in which the respondents were asked about their own birthweights to examine the long-term associations between low and high birthweight and eight outcome variables related to the QOL: adolescent academic performance, height, education, marital status, body mass index, income, health, and happiness. We regressed each of the eight outcome variables on low and high birthweight and the interaction terms of the old age and the birthweight dummies for each country. We estimated both the reduced and the recursive-structural forms. While the former estimates the total, that is, the sum of direct and indirect associations between birthweight and each outcome, the latter reports the direct association between birthweight and each outcome. Results In Japan, while low birthweight is negatively associated with all outcomes, the associations of high birthweight were limited. In the U.S., low birthweight was not associated with any outcomes, but high birthweight had significantly negative associations with health and happiness. In contrast, in India, high birthweight was significantly and positively associated with income, health, and happiness, while low birthweight was associated with several outcomes negatively, similar to Japan. These associations were stronger in youth than in old age. Conclusion Our study demonstrated that the associations of birthweight with QOL are widely diversified across countries: low birthweight, rather than high birthweight, is a problem in Japan and India. However, the opposite is true for the U.S., indicating that policymakers in developed countries must pay closer attention to the problems caused by high birthweight, whereas those in developing countries are better to focus on low birthweight.

Suggested Citation

  • Chisako Yamane & Yoshiro Tsutsui, 2022. "Dose birthweight matter to quality of life? A comparison between Japan, the U.S., and India," Health Economics Review, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 1-25, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:hecrev:v:12:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1186_s13561-022-00393-9
    DOI: 10.1186/s13561-022-00393-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1186/s13561-022-00393-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1186/s13561-022-00393-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769.
    2. Rosemary Hyson & Janet Currie, 1999. "Is the Impact of Health Shocks Cushioned by Socioeconomic Status? The Case of Low Birthweight," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 245-250, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Almond, Douglas & Currie, Janet, 2011. "Human Capital Development before Age Five," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 15, pages 1315-1486, Elsevier.
    2. Gajate-Garrido, Gissele & Ahiadeke, Clement, 2015. "The effect of insurance enrollment on maternal and child health care utilization: The case of Ghana," IFPRI discussion papers 1495, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    3. Maclean, Johanna Catherine & Popovici, Ioana & French, Michael T., 2016. "Are natural disasters in early childhood associated with mental health and substance use disorders as an adult?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 78-91.
    4. Clark, Andrew E. & D’Ambrosio, Conchita & Rohde, Nicholas, 2021. "Prenatal economic shocks and birth outcomes in UK cohort data," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    5. Gissele Gajate-Garrido, 2013. "The Impact of Adequate Prenatal Care on Urban Birth Outcomes: An Analysis in a Developing Country Context," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 62(1), pages 95-130.
    6. Wright, Austin L. & Sonin, Konstantin & Driscoll, Jesse & Wilson, Jarnickae, 2020. "Poverty and economic dislocation reduce compliance with COVID-19 shelter-in-place protocols," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 544-554.
    7. Guido de Blasio & Daniela Vuri, 2019. "Effects of the Joint Custody Law in Italy," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(3), pages 479-514, September.
    8. Alston Lee J. & Mueller Bernardo, 2018. "Priests, Conflicts and Property Rights: the Impacts on Tenancy and Land Use in Brazil," Man and the Economy, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-26, June.
    9. MacDonald, Peter, 2013. "Labour substitution and the scope for military outsourcing," MPRA Paper 46688, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Matteo Migheli, 2021. "Green purchasing: the effect of parenthood and gender," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(7), pages 10576-10600, July.
    11. Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Zhao, Jun, 2020. "Doubly robust difference-in-differences estimators," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 219(1), pages 101-122.
    12. Marie Bjørneby & Annette Alstadsæter & Kjetil Telle, 2018. "Collusive tax evasion by employers and employees. Evidence from a randomized fi eld experiment in Norway," Discussion Papers 891, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    13. David S. Lee & Justin McCrary & Marcelo J. Moreira & Jack Porter, 2022. "Valid t-Ratio Inference for IV," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(10), pages 3260-3290, October.
    14. Knack, Steve & Xu, Lixin Colin, 2017. "Unbundling institutions for external finance: Worldwide firm-level evidence," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 215-232.
    15. Martin Schlotter & Guido Schwerdt & Ludger Woessmann, 2011. "Econometric methods for causal evaluation of education policies and practices: a non-technical guide," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 109-137.
    16. Mónica L. Caudillo, 2019. "Advanced School Progression Relative to Age and Early Family Formation in Mexico," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(3), pages 863-890, June.
    17. Muller, Christophe, 2018. "Heterogeneity and nonconstant effect in two-stage quantile regression," Econometrics and Statistics, Elsevier, vol. 8(C), pages 3-12.
    18. María Fernanda Rosales, 2014. "Impact of Early Life Shocks on Human Capital Formation: El Niño Floods in Ecuador," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 87693, Inter-American Development Bank.
    19. Augusto Mendoza Calderón, 2017. "El Efecto del Empleo sobre la Violencia Doméstica: Evidencia para las Mujeres Peruanas," Working Papers 99, Peruvian Economic Association.
    20. Abu S. Shonchoy, 2015. "Seasonal Migration and Microcredit During Agricultural Lean Seasons: Evidence from Northwest Bangladesh," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 53(1), pages 1-26, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:hecrev:v:12:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1186_s13561-022-00393-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/13561 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.