Parental educational similarity and inequality implications for infant health in Chile : evidence from administrative records, 1990-2015
Abufhele, Alejandra (Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez)
Luca Maria, Pesando (New York University)
Castro-Torres, Andrés F. (Centre d'Estudis Demogràfics)

Date:	2022
Description:	15 pàg.
Abstract:	This study expands existing scholarship on the relationship between parental educational similarity and infant health using rich administrative data from Chile covering births that occurred between 1990 and 2015. We test the relationship between parental educational similarity (homogamy) or dissimilarity (heterogamy) and two measures of infant health, namely low birth weight (LBW) and preterm birth (PB). We show that parental educational homogamy is associated with a reduced probability of low birth weight and preterm birth - particularly at the high end of the educational distribution - and the observed association is only partly driven by selection into homogamous couples, as demonstrated by complementary quasi-experimental analyses conducted on a subsample of matched step-siblings from same mothers but different fathers. We further show that couples where women outrank men in educational attainment (hypogamy) exhibit worse birth outcomes relative to their homogamous and hypergamous counterparts. Municipality-level analyses merging external information on female labor force participation (FLFP) prior to childbirth reveal that the association between hypogamy and children's outcomes is increasingly negative as FLFP increases, highlighting a strong work-life balance tension for educated women who are actively engaged in the labor force. Insights from this study contribute to a better understanding of the inequality debate surrounding the intergenerational transmission of advantage and disadvantage - a topical issue in a country that has recently joined the rank of the world's wealthiest nations yet maintains extreme levels of socioeconomic inequality.
Grants:	European Research Council ERC-2020-STG-948557-MINEQ Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades FJC2020-042965-I
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, i la comunicació pública de l'obra, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original. No es permet la creació d'obres derivades.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Educational similarity ; Parental influences ; Infant health ; Birth records ; Gender ; Social stratification ; Inequality ; Chile
Published in:	Research in social stratification and mobility, Vol. 82 Article 100736 (2022) , ISSN 0276-5624

DOI: 10.1016/j.rssm.2022.100736

15 p, 1.3 MB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Social and Legal Sciences > Centre for Demographic Studies (CED-CERCA)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles