IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ehbiol/v9y2011i2p194-202.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Childhood circumstances and height among older adults in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Tucker-Seeley, Reginald D.
  • Subramanian, S.V.

Abstract

We investigated the association between adult height and three indicators of childhood circumstances: mother's education, childhood financial hardship, and childhood health in the United States. Cross-sectional analysis of adults aged 50 and older in the 2004 Health and Retirement Study (NÂ =Â 14,079) was conducted. Gender and gender-race stratified regression models were used to model the association between adult height and childhood circumstances. The gender-stratified results showed a positive gradient association between mother's education and adult height; those reporting up to grade 8, high school graduate, and greater than high school education for their mother were 4.17Â cm (pÂ

Suggested Citation

  • Tucker-Seeley, Reginald D. & Subramanian, S.V., 2011. "Childhood circumstances and height among older adults in the United States," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 194-202, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:9:y:2011:i:2:p:194-202
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570-677X(10)00107-3
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anne Case & Christina Paxson, 2011. "The Long Reach of Childhood Health and Circumstance: Evidence from the Whitehall II Study," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(554), pages 183-204, August.
    2. Batty, G. David & Shipley, Martin J. & Gunnell, David & Huxley, Rachel & Kivimaki, Mika & Woodward, Mark & Lee, Crystal Man Ying & Smith, George Davey, 2009. "Height, wealth, and health: An overview with new data from three longitudinal studies," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 137-152, July.
    3. Ye Luo & Linda J. Waite, 2005. "The Impact of Childhood and Adult SES on Physical, Mental, and Cognitive Well-Being in Later Life," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 60(2), pages 93-101.
    4. Anne Case & Christina Paxson, 2008. "Height, Health, and Cognitive Function at Older Ages," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 463-467, May.
    5. Webb, Elizabeth Alice & Kuh, Diana & Pajak, Andrzej & Kubinova, Ruzena & Malyutina, Sofia & Bobak, Martin, 2008. "Estimation of secular trends in adult height, and childhood socioeconomic circumstances in three Eastern European populations," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 228-236, July.
    6. Baum II, Charles L. & Ruhm, Christopher J., 2009. "Age, socioeconomic status and obesity growth," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 635-648, May.
    7. repec:pri:rpdevs:case_paxson_cog_function_additional is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Blackwell, Debra L. & Hayward, Mark D. & Crimmins, Eileen M., 2001. "Does childhood health affect chronic morbidity in later life?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 52(8), pages 1269-1284, April.
    9. repec:pri:rpdevs:case_paxson_height_health_and_cognitive_function.pdf is not listed on IDEAS
    10. repec:pri:cheawb:case_paxson_height_health_and_cognitive_function is not listed on IDEAS
    11. repec:pri:rpdevs:case_paxson_height_health_and_cognitive_function is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Komlos, John, 2010. "The recent decline in the height of African-American women," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 58-66, March.
    13. Cole, T. J., 2003. "The secular trend in human physical growth: a biological view," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 161-168, June.
    14. Janet Currie & Enrico Moretti, 2003. "Mother's Education and the Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital: Evidence from College Openings," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1495-1532.
    15. repec:pri:cheawb:long_reach_of_childhood_whitehallii_study.pdf is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Peck, Maria Nyström & Lundberg, Olle, 1995. "Short stature as an effect of economic and social conditions in childhood," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 41(5), pages 733-738, September.
    17. repec:pri:cheawb:long_reach_of_childhood_whitehallii_study is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Steckel, Richard H., 2009. "Heights and human welfare: Recent developments and new directions," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 1-23, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. S V Subramanian & Emre Özaltin & Jocelyn E Finlay, 2011. "Height of Nations: A Socioeconomic Analysis of Cohort Differences and Patterns among Women in 54 Low- to Middle-Income Countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(4), pages 1-13, April.
    2. Mosca, Irene, 2013. "Body mass index, waist circumference and employment: Evidence from older Irish adults," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 522-533.
    3. Peracchi, Franco & Arcaleni, Emilia, 2011. "Early-life environment, height and BMI of young men in Italy," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 251-264, July.
    4. Guven, Cahit & Lee, Wang-Sheng, 2015. "Height, aging and cognitive abilities across Europe," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 16-29.
    5. Grace Wyshak, 2014. "Height, Socioeconomic and Subjective Well-Being Factors among U.S. Women, Ages 49–79," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(6), pages 1-17, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. S V Subramanian & Emre Özaltin & Jocelyn E Finlay, 2011. "Height of Nations: A Socioeconomic Analysis of Cohort Differences and Patterns among Women in 54 Low- to Middle-Income Countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(4), pages 1-13, April.
    2. Olivier Bargain & Jinan Zeidan, 2017. "Stature, Skills and Adult Life Outcomes: Evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(6), pages 873-890, June.
    3. Juliet Elu & Gregory Price, 2013. "Ethnicity as a Barrier to Childhood and Adolescent Health Capital in Tanzania: Evidence from the Wage-Height Relationship," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 25(1), pages 1-13.
    4. Steckel, Richard H., 2009. "Heights and human welfare: Recent developments and new directions," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 1-23, January.
    5. Maurer, Jürgen, 2010. "Height, education and later-life cognition in Latin America and the Caribbean," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 168-176, July.
    6. Janet Currie, 2009. "Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise: Socioeconomic Status, Poor Health in Childhood, and Human Capital Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 87-122, March.
    7. Freedman, Vicki A. & Martin, Linda G. & Schoeni, Robert F. & Cornman, Jennifer C., 2008. "Declines in late-life disability: The role of early- and mid-life factors," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(7), pages 1588-1602, April.
    8. Quintana-Domeque, Climent & Bozzoli, Carlos & Bosch, Mariano, 2012. "The evolution of adult height across Spanish regions, 1950–1980: A new source of data," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 264-275.
    9. Acosta, Karina & Meisel, Adolfo, 2013. "Anthropometric measurements by ethnicity in Colombia, 1965–1990," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 416-425.
    10. Huang, Ying & van Poppel, Frans & Lumey, L.H., 2015. "Differences in height by education among 371,105 Dutch military conscripts," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 202-207.
    11. Akachi, Yoko & Canning, David, 2010. "Health trends in Sub-Saharan Africa: Conflicting evidence from infant mortality rates and adult heights," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 273-288, July.
    12. Do, D. Phuong & Watkins, Daphne C. & Hiermeyer, Martin & Finch, Brian K., 2013. "The relationship between height and neighborhood context across racial/ethnic groups: A multi-level analysis of the 1999–2004 U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 30-41.
    13. Anna Zajacova & Katrina Walsemann & Jennifer Dowd, 2015. "The Long Arm of Adolescent Health Among Men and Women: Does Attained Status Explain Its Association with Mid-Adulthood Health?," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 34(1), pages 19-48, February.
    14. Perkins, Jessica M. & Khan, Kashif T. & Smith, George Davey & Subramanian, S.V., 2011. "Patterns and trends of adult height in India in 2005-2006," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 184-193, March.
    15. Christelis, Dimitris & Dobrescu, Loretti I. & Motta, Alberto, 2020. "Early life conditions and financial risk-taking in older age," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 17(C).
    16. Maria-Dolores, Ramon & Martínez Carrion, José Miguel, 2012. "The comovement between height and some economic development indicators in Spain," UMUFAE Economics Working Papers 26464, DIGITUM. Universidad de Murcia.
    17. Bratti, Massimiliano & Mendola, Mariapia, 2014. "Parental health and child schooling," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 94-108.
    18. Schultz, T. Paul, 2010. "Population and Health Policies," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4785-4881, Elsevier.
    19. Scott Carson, 2015. "A Weighty Issue: Diminished Net Nutrition Among the U.S. Working Class in the Nineteenth Century," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(3), pages 945-966, June.
    20. Scott A. Carson, 2017. "Assessing Cumulative Net Nutrition and the Transition from 19th Century Bound to Free-Labor by Ethnic Status," CESifo Working Paper Series 6813, CESifo.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:9:y:2011:i:2:p:194-202. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622964 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.