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Birth Weight and Cognitive Development during Childhood: Evidence from India
Author(s) -
Kumar Santosh,
Kumar Kaushalendra,
Laxminarayan Ramanan,
Nandi Arindam
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
economic papers: a journal of applied economics and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.245
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1759-3441
pISSN - 0812-0439
DOI - 10.1111/1759-3441.12335
Subject(s) - birth weight , low birth weight , human capital , demography , cognition , cognitive development , test (biology) , early childhood , instrumental variable , medicine , psychology , developmental psychology , pediatrics , pregnancy , economics , biology , econometrics , sociology , economic growth , paleontology , genetics , psychiatry
Health at birth is an important indicator of human capital development over the life course. This paper uses longitudinal data from the Young Lives survey and employs instrumental variable regression models to estimate the effect of birth weight on cognitive development during childhood in India. We find that a 10 per cent increase in birth weight increases cognitive test scores by 0.11 standard deviations at 5–8 years of age. Low birth weight infants experience a lower test score compared with normal birth weight infants. The positive effect of birth weight on a cognitive test score is larger for girls, children from rural households and those with less educated mothers. Our findings suggest that health policies designed to improve birth weight could improve human capital in resource‐poor settings.