TY - JOUR
T1 - Booms, busts, and babies' health
AU - Dehejia, Rajeev
AU - Lleras-Muney, Adriana
N1 - Funding Information:
* We are extremely grateful to Lawrence Katz, Edward Glaeser, and two anonymous referees for detailed comments and to Roland Fryer and Steven Levitt for their generosity in providing us with results from their confidential California birth data. We thank Orley Ashenfelter, Marianne Bertrand, Sherry Glied, Caroline Hoxby, Chang-Tai Hsieh, Alan Krueger, Phillip Levine, Diane Macunovich, Christina Paxson, Jane Waldfogel, and seminar participants at Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Princeton University, University of California, Los Angeles, and the National Bureau of Economic Research Summer Institute for many valuable conversations and suggestions. We also thank Anne Case for allowing us to use her state data, and Phillip Levine for providing us with abortion data from the CDC. We thank Michael Roh for patiently running our specifications on the California data and Alice Roberta Wei-mers for excellent research assistance. This research was partially funded by the National Institute on Aging, Grant Number K12-AG00983 to the National Bureau of Economic Research.
PY - 2004/8
Y1 - 2004/8
N2 - We study the relationship between the unemployment rate at the time of a baby's conception and parental characteristics, parental behaviors, and babies' health. Babies conceived in times of high unemployment have a reduced incidence of low and very low birth weight, fewer congenital malformations, and lower postneonatal mortality. These health improvements are attributable both to selection (changes in the type of mothers who conceive during recessions) and to improvements in health behavior during recessions. Black mothers tend to be higher socioeconomic status (as measured by education and marital status) in times of high unemployment, whereas White mothers are less educated.
AB - We study the relationship between the unemployment rate at the time of a baby's conception and parental characteristics, parental behaviors, and babies' health. Babies conceived in times of high unemployment have a reduced incidence of low and very low birth weight, fewer congenital malformations, and lower postneonatal mortality. These health improvements are attributable both to selection (changes in the type of mothers who conceive during recessions) and to improvements in health behavior during recessions. Black mothers tend to be higher socioeconomic status (as measured by education and marital status) in times of high unemployment, whereas White mothers are less educated.
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U2 - 10.1162/0033553041502216
DO - 10.1162/0033553041502216
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:4043118306
SN - 0033-5533
VL - 119
SP - 1091
EP - 1130
JO - Quarterly Journal of Economics
JF - Quarterly Journal of Economics
IS - 3
ER -