Human Capital, Social Capital and Infant Health: Evidence from New Panel Data

婴儿健康是一个人未来人生成功的关键决定因素。例如，出生体重过低的幸存婴儿更有可能患有学习障碍和其他认知问题。此外，社会经济地位较低的儿童的平均出生结果要差得多。婴儿的健康由于母亲缺乏机会而受到损害，这是使贫穷和不平等在两代人之间长期存在的一种机制。这个项目利用加州1982年到2001年的生命统计出生记录汇编了一组关于婴儿健康的新数据。该小组允许他们跟踪母亲的生育间隔，以回答关于人力资本、社会资本和婴儿健康决定因素之间关系的三个悬而未决的问题。首先，在美国这样的富裕国家，母亲教育是如何影响婴儿健康的？产妇教育对婴儿健康的溢出效应能否被视为对教育的额外回报？估计的母亲教育效果是否因社会经济地位、移民身份或种族/民族而异？为了回答这些问题，本项目比较了母亲在分娩期间提高教育程度的兄弟姐妹与母亲没有提高教育程度的兄弟姐妹的婴儿健康结果。该项目还审查了通过加强教育改善婴儿健康的各种渠道。其次，“网络效应”能否解释公共资助的产妇保健服务使用中的地理/种族相关性？许多研究人员注意到，女性在使用地理和民族/种族关系定义的网络中的行为之间存在很强的相关性，但很难证明存在因果关系。一组数据使研究人员能够控制婴儿健康的许多不可观察的决定因素，这些决定因素使以前的非实验研究感到困惑。此外，本项目检验了普遍存在的假设，即估计的网络效应反映了共享信息。如果网络通过传递信息来起作用，那么对以前没有使用过公共产科护理服务的母亲的估计影响应该更大，因为已经体验过这些服务的母亲将知道如何获得这些服务，而不需要从网络中获得这些信息。该小组允许比较网络对之前接受过和没有接受过服务的妇女的估计影响，以便进行这项测试。第三个问题是加州医疗补助管理式医疗的实施是如何影响产妇保健服务的。该小组的构建使该项目能够询问，例如，那些被迫加入医疗补助管理的医疗机构的医疗补助母亲是否更不可能加入医疗补助，使用某些医院，接受服务，并最终生下健康的婴儿。本项目评估了低收入母亲获得保健服务方面的重大变化在缓解或加剧因出生时健康差异而造成的不平等方面发挥的作用。

Infant health is a key determinant of an individual's future success in life. For example, surviving infants of low birth weight are more likely to suffer from learning disabilities and other cognitive problems. Moreover, children of lower socioeconomic status have much poorer birth outcomes on average. To the extent that infant health is compromised by the mother's lack of opportunity, it represents a mechanism for the intergenerational perpetuation of poverty and inequality. This project assembles a new panel of data on infant health using California's Vital Statistics Natality Records for 1982 to 2001. This panel allows them to follow mothers between births in order to answer three outstanding questions about the relationships between human capital, social capital, and the determinants of infant health. First, how does maternal education affect infant health in a rich country such as the United States? Can spillovers from maternal education to infant health be considered as an additional return to education? Do estimated effects of maternal education differ with socioeconomic status, immigrant status, or race/ethnicity? In order to answer these questions this project compares the infant health outcomes of siblings whose mothers increased their education between births to those whose mothers did not. The project also examines the channels through which increased education improves infant health. Second, can "network effects" explain geographical/ethnic correlations in the use of publicly funded maternity care services. Many researchers have noted strong correlations between behaviors of women in networks defined using geographical and ethnic/racial affiliations, but it is difficult to prove that there is a causal link. A panel of data allows the researchers to control for many unobservable determinants of infant health which have confounded previous non-experimental studies. Moreover this project tests the prevalent hypothesis that estimated network effects reflect shared information. If networks act by transmitting information, then the estimated effects should be larger among mothers who have not previously used public maternity care services, since mothers who have already experienced the services will know how to access them and do not need to gain this information from networks. The panel permits comparisons of the estimated effects of networks on women who did and did not previously receive the services in order to conduct this test. The third question is how the implementation of Medicaid managed care in California has affected access to maternity care services. The construction of the panel enables the project to ask, for example, whether Medicaid mothers who are constrained to join Medicaid managed care organizations become less likely to enroll in Medicaid, use certain hospitals, to receive services, and ultimately to have healthy infants. This project assesses the extent to which an important change in access to health care for low income mothers has played a role in ameliorating or acerbating inequalities due to differentials in health at birth.