Do minimum wages improve early life health? Evidence from developing countries.

Area of Science:

• Economics
• Global Health
• Child Development

Background:

• The effect of minimum wage policies on early-childhood health in low and middle-income countries remains under-researched.
• Existing literature often focuses on developed economies, leaving a gap in understanding impacts in diverse global settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the causal impact of legislated minimum wages on the early-life health of children in low and middle-income countries.
• To examine how these effects vary across different demographic and socioeconomic groups.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from Demographic and Household Surveys (DHS) across 57 countries (1999-2013).
• Employed plausibly exogenous variation in minimum wages during a child's birth year to establish causality.
• Conducted sensitivity analyses using mother fixed-effect models for within-family comparisons.

Main Results:

• A 1% increase in minimum wages was associated with a 0.1% decrease in height-for-age z-scores (HAZ).
• Adverse effects were more pronounced for girls, children of younger fathers, less educated parents, and those in manual labor.
• Negative impacts were concentrated in lower-income countries and South Asia, while positive effects were seen in Latin America and for children of skilled workers.

Conclusions:

• Minimum wage increases do not uniformly improve child health in lower-income countries.
• The impact of minimum wages on child health is heterogeneous, influenced by country income, region, and parental socioeconomic factors.
• Further research on country-specific impacts and parental investment is warranted.