Obesity and labor market outcomes

Rising obesity is not only a pressing global public health problem. There is also substantial evidence that obese people, particularly women, are less likely to be employed and, when employed, are likely to earn lower wages. There is some evidence that the lower earnings are a result of discriminatory hiring and sorting into jobs with less customer contact. Understanding whether obesity is associated with adverse labor market outcomes and ascertaining the source of these outcomes are essential for designing effective public policy

The effects of EITC payment expansion on maternal smoking

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is the largest anti-poverty program in the U.S. In 1993, the EITC benefit levels were changed significantly based on the number of children in the family such that families with two or more children experienced an exogenous expansion in their incomes. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort, we employ a triple differences plus Fixed-Effects framework to examine the effect of this change on the probability of smoking among low-educated mothers. We find that the probability of smoking for white and Hispanic low-educated mothers of two or more children decreased statistically significantly relative to those with only one child, and the results are robust to various specification tests. These results provide new evidence on the protective effect of income on health through changes in health behaviors, and therefore have important policy implications

Identifying the Causal Effect of Alcohol Abuse on the Perpetration of Intimate Partner Violence by Men Using a Natural Experiment

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is widespread among women, with substantial and long-lasting negative consequences. Researchers have documented a strong positive correlation between alcohol abuse and IPV. Yet prior researchers have struggled with the problem of the potential endogeneity of alcohol abuse. In this paper, we deal with this problem by exploring a unique instrumental variable - the September 11 terrorist attack (9/11) - in Wave III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. 9/11 was found in our data to lead to a significant increase in the frequency of alcohol abuse for respondents interviewed just after 9/11 compared to those interviewed before. Our OLS results indeed confirm earlier research of a strong positive correlation between alcohol abuse and IPV. However, the 2SLS results show no statistically significant effect of alcohol abuse on IPV. These results indicate that alcohol abuse might not have causal effects on IPV, and therefore have important policy implications

The Effects of the Earned Income Tax Credit on Children's Health, Quality of Home Environment, and Non-Cognitive Skills

In 1993, the benefit levels of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) were changed significantly based on the number of children in the household. Employing a difference-in-differences plus mother fixed-effects framework, we find better mother-rated health for children of unmarried black mothers and married white and Hispanic mothers, lower accident rates for children of married white and Hispanic mothers, and improved home environment quality for children of unmarried white and Hispanic mothers. Our results provide new evidence of the effects of the 1993 EITC expansion and therefore have important policy implications

The Relationship between Maternal Pre-Pregnancy BMI and Preschool Obesity

The increasing prevalence of obesity during pregnancy raises concerns over the intergenerational transmission of obesity and its potential to exacerbate the current obesity epidemic. The fetal origins hypothesis posits that the intrauterine environment might have lasting effects on children's outcomes. A large literature establishes that mother's pre-pregnancy obesity is correlated with obesity in her children. However, previous research is largely based on comparing individuals across families and hence cannot control for unobservable factors associated with both maternal and child obesity. We use both within-family comparisons and an instrumental variable approach on a sample of 4435 children to identify the effect of maternal pre-pregnancy obesity on obesity in preschool-aged children. Consistent with extant research, OLS models that rely on across-family comparisons indicate a significant correlation between maternal pre-pregnancy obesity and preschool obesity. However, maternal fixed effects render those associations insignificant. Instrumenting for mother's BMI with her sisters' BMI values confirms the null result indicating that the in utero transmission of obesity is likely not driving the increase in childhood obesity

Is it necessary to walk the talk? The effects of maternal experiences and communication on the sexual behavior of female adolescents

Numerous social marketing campaigns exhort parents to talk to their children about sexual abstinence and pregnancy/STD prevention while child-development experts advise parents to initiate discussions about reproductive health and related values at an early age. The efficacy of these marketing campaigns and the precise impact of ongoing dialogue between parents and children are difficult to ascertain, however, if parents are more likely to broach related topics with adolescents with otherwise greater propensities for risky behavior. While extant research recognizes the importance of family environment and parenting activities, little has been done to separately control for the various aspects of parenting that might confound the influence of the marketing campaigns. We separately identify the effects of parenting style, a parent's own risky behavior, and the parent's communication about sex on her adolescent's sexual behavior. OLS models indicate that female adolescents with less strict parents, whose mothers gave birth as teenagers, or whose mothers communicate more about sex are more likely to have sexual intercourse, practice unsafe sex, and engage in casual sex. After controlling for the endogeneity of parental talk, though, we find that an increase in parental talk neither increases nor decreases the probability an adolescent has had sex, unsafe sex, or casual sex. The only exception is a strongly significant result that more communication about sex from mothers who were themselves teen mothers actually increases the probability a daughter has had sex

The Effect of Family Size on Education: New Evidence from China's One Child Policy

Social scientists theorize that the inverse relationship between socio-economic status and family size represents a trade-off between the quality and quantity of children. Evaluating this hypothesis empirically requires addressing the simultaneity of the quality and quantity decisions. Researchers have used the unanticipated birth of twins as exogenous variation in family size or the sex composition of the first two children as an instrument for family size with mixed results. We exploit a different source of exogenous variation in family size. The One Child Policy (OCP) in China dramatically reduced Chinese fertility and we examine how the OCP has affected the educational attainment of Chinese migrants to the U.S. Using data from the American Community Survey (2009-2012) and a difference-in-differences strategy our results support the quality-quantity tradeoff theory. We find that education increased more for Chinese migrants born after the OCP than their counterparts from other East Asian countries

Indebted and overweight: The link between weight and household debt

There is a substantial correlation between household debt and bodyweight. Theory suggests that a causal relationship between debt and bodyweight could run in either direction or both could be caused by unobserved common factors. We use OLS and Propensity Score Matching to ascertain if household debt (measured by credit card indebtedness and having trouble paying bills) is a potential cause of obesity. We find a strong positive correlation between debt and weight for women but this seems driven largely by unobservables. In contrast, men with trouble paying their bills are thinner and this is robust to various specification checks

Immigration, obesity and labor market outcomes in the UK

We estimate the dual effects of immigration and obesity on labor market outcomes in the UK. There is only one other paper that has estimated these dual effects on a sample of immigrants to the US. We use the British Household Panel Survey, which contains information on height and weight for 2004 and 2006, along with immigration status and labor market outcomes. This was a period of increased immigration to the UK resulting in large part from the accession of new EU member states, though our sample includes both recent arrivals and those who have been in the UK for decades. We first analyze an immigrant-only sample and then expand the sample to compare the experience of these immigrants to natives with similar weight and other observable characteristics. We find support for the healthy immigrant hypothesis that suggests that immigrants are less likely to be obese than natives, and also evidence of an assimilation effect in which immigrants' weight increases with their time in the UK. The results indicate a wage premium and higher proportions of white collar work for immigrant men, but a wage penalty and lower proportions of white collar work for overweight and obese immigrant men. We find weaker but still negative associations between weight and labor market outcomes for immigrant women. Data limitations preclude efforts to address endogeneity, so these findings should be viewed as associations that support the need for better data for additional analysis of the dual effects of immigration and obesity on labor market outcomes

Welfare Reform and Immigrant Fertility

Immigration policy continues to be at the forefront of policy discussions, and the use of welfare benefits by immigrants has been hotly debated. In 1996, Congress enacted welfare reform legislation (PRWORA), which denied the use of most means-tested assistance to non-citizens and lowered immigrant welfare dramatically. While Federal legislation imposed strict restrictions on eligibility for non-citizens, a number of states allowed previously eligible women to continue to receive benefits similar to those before 1996, whereas others imposed the new Federal cutbacks. Using data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) for the years 1994-2000, we examine whether immigrant women adjusted their childbearing in response to cutbacks in the generosity of welfare benefits at the state-level. Our findings suggest that non-citizen women, especially those of Hispanic origin, altered their fertility decisions in response to the legislation. In addition, they increased their labor force participation, possibly to obtain employer-sponsored benefits. Our results are robust to alternative definitions of our treatment and control groups and do not appear to be driven by pre-existing trends. Finally, we find no evidence that women who anticipated having children migrated to the more generous states. Overall, the results provide further evidence that immigrants respond to variation in state-level policies and provide insight into the potential impacts of comprehensive immigration reform, particularly the components related to the path to citizenship and access to public benefits