A Causal Analysis of Mother’s Education on Birth Inequalities

36 Pages Posted: 7 Mar 2012

See all articles by Francesco Bartolucci

Francesco Bartolucci

Università di Perugia - Finanza e Statistica - Dipartimento di Economia

Silvia Bacci

University of Perugia - Department of Economics, Finance and Statistics

Luca Pieroni

University of Perugia - Department of Economics

Date Written: March 7, 2012

Abstract

We propose a causal analysis of the mother’s educational level on the health status of the newborn, in terms of gestational weeks and weight. The analysis is based on a finite mixture structural equation model, the parameters of which have a causal interpretation. The model is applied to a dataset of almost ten thausand deliveries collected in an Italian region. The analysis confirms that standard regression overestimates the impact of education on the child health. With respect to the current economic literature, our findings indicate that only high education has positive consequences on child health, implying that policy efforts in education should have benefits for welfare.

Keywords: birthweight, finite mixtures, intergenerational health trasmission, latent class model, structural equation models

JEL Classification: I12, I13, I24, C30, J13

Suggested Citation

Bartolucci, Francesco and Bacci, Silvia and Pieroni, Luca, A Causal Analysis of Mother’s Education on Birth Inequalities (March 7, 2012). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2017489 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2017489

Francesco Bartolucci (Contact Author)

Università di Perugia - Finanza e Statistica - Dipartimento di Economia ( email )

06123

Silvia Bacci

University of Perugia - Department of Economics, Finance and Statistics ( email )

Italy

Luca Pieroni

University of Perugia - Department of Economics ( email )

via Pascoli, 20
PG 06123 Perugia, 06123
Italy