Selection and the Marriage Premium for Infant Health
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Selection and the Marriage Premium for Infant Health Kasey S. Buckles & Joseph Price
Published online: 12 April 2013 # Population Association of America 2013
Abstract Previous research has found a positive relationship between marriage and infant health, but it is unclear whether this relationship is causal or a reflection of positive selection into marriage. We use multiple empirical approaches to address this issue. First, using a technique developed by Gelbach (2009) to determine the relative importance of observable characteristics, we show how selection into marriage has changed over time. Second, we construct a matched sample of children born to the same mother and apply panel data techniques to account for time-invariant unobserved characteristics. We find evidence of a sizable marriage premium. However, this premium fell by more than 40 % between 1989 and 2004, largely as a result of declining selection into marriage by race. Accounting for selection reduces ordinary least squares estimates of the marriage premiums for birth weight, prematurity, and infant mortality by at least one-half. Keywords Marriage . Marriage premium . Infant health . Birth weight . Prematurity
Introduction Research has consistently found that marriage is associated with a number of positive health outcomes. Married people live longer, have fewer alcohol-related problems, and engage in fewer risky behaviors (Waite 1995). Studies also show that infants born to married parents are less likely to suffer from prematurity, low birth weight, and mortality than infants born to unmarried mothers (Bennett 1992; Bennett et al. 1994; Bird et al. 2000; Peacock et al. 1995). These infant health differences can be large, and vary with maternal characteristics such as race, age, or education (Jacknowitz and Schmidt 2008). Disparities in infant health are of particular concern because of the potential for large effects on long-term outcomes, including chronic illness, educational attainment, K. S. Buckles (*) Department of Economics, University of Notre Dame, 436 Flanner Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA e-mail: [email protected] J. Price Department of Economics, Brigham Young University, 162 FOB, Provo, UT 84602, USA
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income, and the likelihood of physical disability (see Almond 2006; Almond et al. 2005; Barker 1995; Behrman and Rosenzweig 2004; Chay et al. 2009; Oreopoulos et al. 2008; Smith et al. 2008). Despite the wealth of evidence of a positive relationship between marriage and infant health, it remains unclear whether there is a causal effect of marriage. A major challenge with interpreting these results as such is the possibility of selection into marriage. The observable characteristics of married and unmarried mothers are very different; they are likely different in unobservable ways as well. For example, a common concern is that healthier women may be more likely to marry and may also have healthier babies. And as Ribar (2004) noted, plausibly exogenous sources of variation in marriage have been difficult to f
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