SEASON OF BIRTH AND LATER OUTCOMES: OLD QUESTIONS, NEW ANSWERS

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Buckles, Kasey S.; Hungerman, Daniel M.
• 署名单位: University of Notre Dame; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/REST_a_00314
• 发表日期: 2013-07
• 页码: 711-724
• 关键词: instrumental variables regression; UNITED-STATES; pregnancy outcomes; weak instruments; school-entry; labor-market; social-class; returns; HEALTH; weight

摘要

Season of birth is associated with later outcomes; what drives this association remains unclear. We consider a new explanation: variation in maternal characteristics. We document large changes in maternal characteristics for births throughout the year; winter births are dispropor-tionally realized by teenagers and the unmarried. Family background controls explain nearly half of season-of-birth's relation to adult outcomes. Seasonality in maternal characteristics is driven by women trying to conceive; we find no seasonality among unwanted births. Prior seasonality-in-fertility research focuses on conditions at conception; here, expected conditions at birth drive variation in maternal characteristics, while conditions at conception are unimportant.