Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/224656 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
Beiträge zur Jahrestagung des Vereins für Socialpolitik 2020: Gender Economics
Publisher: 
ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, Kiel, Hamburg
Abstract: 
The consequences of early motherhood for the offspring are severely understudied, especially in low- and middle-income countries, where this phenomenon is prevalent. Using panel data from India, this paper investigates the effect of early maternal age on offspring human capital in terms of health and cognition. The analysis relies on mother fixed effects to allow for mother unobserved heterogeneity and explores for the first time the evolution of effects over time, covering the offspring phases of childhood and early adolescence. Our results indicate that children born to early mothers are shorter for their age and perform poorer in the math test, with stronger effects for (female) offspring born to very young mothers. Interestingly, the Adolescent Motherhood, Human Capital, Child Development, Cognition, Health, Nutrition, Gender, Parenting effect on health weakens over time, while the cognition effect surges in early adolescence. Further analysis suggests both biological and behavioral factors as transmission channels.
Subjects: 
Adolescent Motherhood
Human Capital
Child Development
Cognition
Health
Nutrition
Gender
Parenting
JEL: 
I15
I25
J13
J16
O15
Document Type: 
Conference Paper

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