TY  - JOUR
AU  - Costa,Dora L.
TI  - Unequal at Birth: A Long-Term Comparison of Income and Birth Weight
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 6313
PY  - 1999
Y2  - June 1999
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6313
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6313.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Dora Costa
Bunche Hall 9272
Department of Economics
UCLA
Box 951477
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1477
Tel: (310) 825-4249
Fax: (310) 825-9528
E-Mail: costa@econ.ucla.edu
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 1998-07-01
AB  - I demonstrate that although socioeconomic differences in birth weight have always been" fairly small in the United States, they have narrowed since the beginning of this century.  I argue" that maternal height, and therefore the mother's nutritional status during her growing years accounted for most of the socioeconomic differences in birth weight in the past implying that in the past health inequality was transmitted across generations.  I also show that" children born at the beginning of this century compared favorably to modern populations in terms" of birth weights, but suffered higher fetal and neonatal death rates because obstetrical and" medical knowledge was poorer.  In addition, by day ten children in the past were at a" disadvantage relative to children today because best practice resulted in insufficient feeding.  The" poor average health of past populations therefore originated in part in the first days of life."
ER  -