Family income and child health in the UK

Bénédicte Apouey and Pierre Geoffard

Abstract: Recent studies examining the relationship between family income and child health in the UK have produced mixed findings. We re-examine the income gradient in child general health and its evolution with child age in this country, using a very large sample of British children. We find that there is no correlation between income and child general health at ages 0-1, that the gradient emerges around age 2 and is constant from age 2 to age 17. In addition, we show that the gradient remains large and significant when we try to address the endogeneity of income. Furthermore, our results indicate that the gradient in general health reflects a greater prevalence of chronic conditions among lowincome children and a greater severity of these conditions. Taken together, these findings suggest that income does matter for child health in the UK and may play a role in the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status.

Keywords: Child health; Family income; Gradient (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-hea
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00794729v1
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (35)

Downloads: (external link)
https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00794729v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Family income and child health in the UK (2013)
Working Paper: Family income and child health in the UK (2013)
Working Paper: Family income and child health in the UK (2013)
Working Paper: Family income and child health in the UK (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-00794729

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in PSE Working Papers from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().