Human Services News

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

Weighing less than 5.5 pounds at birth increases the probability of dropping out of high school by one-third, reduces yearly earnings by about 15 percent and burdens people in their 30s and 40s with the health of someone who is 12 years older.

It is based on an analysis of more than 35 years of data on more than 12,000 individuals from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, conducted since 1968 by the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (ISR).

Because of the study's unique genealogical design, the researchers were able to compare outcomes for siblings to isolate the impact of low birth weight apart from other common family conditions siblings share.

According to the authors, economists Rucker Johnson at the University of California, Berkeley, and Robert Schoeni at U-M, the study provides the most detailed look to date at how well-being and disadvantage are transmitted across generations within families.

"The poor economic status of parents at the time of pregnancy leads to worse birth outcomes for their children," Johnson and Schoeni write in a working paper from the U-M National Poverty Center.

Compared to their normal birth weight siblings, low birth-weight children are 30 percent less likely to be in excellent or very good health in childhood.

The earnings penalty for being born low weight also increases with age, from 10.2 percent at age 25 to 15.6 percent at age 35.

ISR conducts some of the most widely-cited studies in the nation, including the Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers, the American National Election Studies, the Monitoring the Future Study, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the Health and Retirement Study, and the National Survey of Black Americans.

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