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Season of birth and later outcomes: Old questions, new answers (2008)
| Venue: | National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, MA) Working Paper |
| Citations: | 55 - 1 self |
BibTeX
@ARTICLE{Buckles08seasonof,
author = {Kasey Buckles and Daniel M. Hungerman},
title = {Season of birth and later outcomes: Old questions, new answers},
journal = {National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, MA) Working Paper},
year = {2008},
pages = {14573}
}
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Abstract
Research has found that season of birth is associated with later health and professional outcomes; what drives this association remains unclear. We consider a new explanation—that children born in different seasons have mothers with different socioeconomic characteristics. We document large seasonal changes in the characteristics of women giving birth in the United States; these changes explain nearly half of the relationship between season of birth and adult outcomes. Our findings suggest that using season of birth as an instrumental variable may produce inconsistent estimates. Finally, seasonality in maternal characteristics is partly due to weather differentially affecting fertility across socioeconomic groups. 1 Research across the social and natural sciences has consistently found that the month of a child’s birth is associated with later outcomes involving health, educational attainment, earnings and mortality. Much of this work shows that on average individuals born in the winter have worse outcomes (less schooling, lower wages) than other individuals. What drives this association remains unclear. Some prior work has speculated that this association may be driven
Keyphrases
old question new answer prior work different season maternal characteristic adult outcome socioeconomic group different socioeconomic characteristic child birth professional outcome average individual educational attainment large seasonal change united state new explanation instrumental variable natural science inconsistent estimate
