Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/114055 
Year of Publication: 
2015
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 9175
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We study the effect of birth weight on long-run outcomes, including permanent income, income across various stages of the lifecycle, education, social benefits take-up, and adult mortality. For this purpose, we have linked a unique dataset on nearly all Swedish twins born between 1926-1958, containing information on birth weight, to administrative records spanning nearly entire life time labor market histories. We find that birth weight positively affects permanent income and income across large parts of the life cycle, although there is some evidence of a fade out after age 50. Our results indicate that lower birth weight children are more likely to avail of social insurance programs such as unemployment and sickness insurance and that birth weight matters for adult mortality. We supplement our main analysis with more recent data, which enables us to study how the impact of birth weight on income and education of young adults has changed across cohorts born almost 50 years apart.
Subjects: 
birth weight
early life
permanent income
unemployment sickness absence
life-cycle
mortality
JEL: 
I10
I18
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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