Abstract:
Using confidential information on parents' identity, we link the records of all infants born in Florida between 1989 and 2014 to the birth records of their parents who were born in Florida between 1970 and 1988. We first assess the presence of assortative mating on birth weight. We then investigate how parental birth weights translate into children's birth weight. Finally, we calculate how much of the inequality in health at birth (as measured by the variance of the distribution of children's birth weight) is explained by assortative mating in health at birth (as measured by the covariance between parental birth weights). The causal effect of parent birth weight is estimated using parental grandmother fixed effects. We find that parental birth weights are significantly correlated, confirm the child's birth weight is positively and significantly correlated with maternal birth weight, and show that paternal birth weight has an independent effect on child's health endowments. Finally, the covariance of paternal birth weight is positively associated with the variance in the birth weight distribution of their offspring.
Host: Jacopo Bizzotto