Table A.11:
Maternal Education and Infant Health From 1970–1979
| Dependent variable: | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average mothers’ years of schooling | Share low birth weight | Share very low birth weight | Share extremely low birth weight | Average birth weight, grams | Median birth weight, grams | 25th percentile birth weight, grams | 10th percentile birth weight, grams | |
| (1) | (2) | (3) | (4) | (5) | (6) | (7) | (8) | |
| Interaction between 1979–1982 decrease in log real earnings per capita and birth year | ||||||||
| 1971–1973 | 0.095 (0.746) |
0.019 (0.071) |
−0.008 (0.028) |
0.005 (0.019) |
97.90 (170.9) |
250.8 (203.3) |
55.26 (202.3) |
114.6 (282.6) |
| 1974–1976 | −0.701 (0.628) |
0.090 (0.065) |
0.012 (0.020) |
0.022 (0.018) |
−54.40 (168.7) |
68.46 (164.9) |
−67.04 (211.1) |
−251.5 (307.0) |
| 1977–1979 | −1.403 (0.825) |
0.034 (0.055) |
0.018 (0.026) |
0.024 (0.018) |
−41.84 (141.4) |
122.5 (163.7) |
−84.61 (149.5) |
−30.63 (257.3) |
| Observations | 18,799 | 25,497 | 25,497 | 25,497 | 25,497 | 25,497 | 25,497 | 25,497 |
| p-value, all coefs. equal 0 | 0.230 | 0.275 | 0.681 | 0.131 | 0.461 | 0.411 | 0.750 | 0.547 |
| Dep. var. mean, 1970–1979 | 11.91 | 0.069 | 0.010 | 0.005 | 3,336 | 3,361 | 3,018 | 2,660 |
Notes: The interaction between the 1979–1982 decrease in log real earnings per capita and birth year 1970 is normalized to equal zero. Regressions are estimated by 2SLS, using the predicted log employment change from 1979–1982 as an IV. Regressions include the share of births to nonwhite mothers and fixed effects for county and state by year, plus year interacted with the 1950–1960, 1960–1970, and 1970–1980 change in log real median family income and log population, and the 1960 level of log population, log population density, percent urban, percent black, percent foreign, percent with a high school degree, and percent of families with income below $3,000. Sample contains 2,550 counties with less than 5 percent of 1976 employment in the mining sector. Low birth weight is defined as no more than 2,500 grams, very low birth weight is no more than 1,500 grams, and extremely low birth weight is no more than 1,000 grams. Standard errors in parentheses are clustered by state.
Sources: National Center for Health Statistics (1970–1979), BEA Regional Economic Accounts, County Business Patterns, Census County Data Books, Minnesota Population Center (2011)