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Parental human capital and child health at birth in India
Md Nazmul Ahsan1, Riddhi Maharaj2
1Saint Louis University, Department of Economics, 3674 Lindell Blvd, DS Hall-346, St. Louis, MO 63108, USA.
Insights
Parental human capital, particularly maternal health, significantly impacts child survival and birth weight in high infant mortality regions of India. Investing in maternal health can improve child survival and nutrition outcomes.
Area of Science:
- Public Health
- Human Capital Development
- Child Survival Research
Background:
- Birth health is critical for lifelong well-being.
- India's diverse disease environments necessitate regional analysis.
- Parental human capital is a key determinant of child health outcomes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze the association between parental human capital and child survival/nutrition at birth.
- To compare these associations in high and low infant mortality regions of India.
- To focus on firstborns to mitigate confounding factors.
Main Methods:
- Categorized Indian states into high and low infant mortality regions.
- Analyzed the impact of parental human capital on child survival and birth outcomes.
- Restricted analysis to firstborns to control for confounding variables.
Main Results:
- Parental human capital, especially maternal health, strongly predicts child birth outcomes in adverse disease environments.
- In high infant mortality rural areas, increased maternal height correlates with lower neonatal mortality and higher birth weight.
- A 10 cm increase in maternal height was linked to a 1.7% decrease in neonatal death probability and a 5% increase in birth weight.
Conclusions:
- Maternal health is a significant predictor of child survival and nutrition in high-risk Indian regions.
- Investing in maternal human capital can yield substantial improvements in child survival and birth weight.
- Targeted interventions in maternal health can address disparities in child health outcomes.
Abstract:
Health at birth shapes an individual's well-being over her life cycle. We categorize the Indian states into high and low infant mortality regions to capture the diverse disease environment and analyze the nature of the association between parental human capital and child survival and nutrition measures at birth. We restrict our analysis only to firstborns to avoid confounding from a number of factors including sex-selective abortions in the higher birth orders. We broadly find that parental human capital, especially maternal health, is a strong and significant predictor of a child's birth outcomes under adverse disease environment. In the rural areas of the high infant mortality states, a 10-centimeter increase in maternal height is associated with 1.7% lower probability of a child dying as a neonate and 5% increase in birth weight around the mean. These estimates suggest that an investment in human capital of the mothers from this region could accompany large gains in survival and nutrition outcomes of their children.
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