IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v76y2013icp1-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Socioeconomic inequality in birth weight and gestational age in Denmark 1996–2007: Using a family-based approach to explore alternative explanations

Author

Listed:
  • Mortensen, Laust H.

Abstract

A large body of literature has reported associations between socioeconomic position and adverse pregnancy outcomes even in affluent egalitarian welfare states. This study explored the nature of this relationship by examining women who changed socioeconomic position between pregnancies and women who were siblings but were different in terms of socioeconomic position. Data consisted of 471,215 live born singletons born in Denmark 1997–2007 with at least one sibling or one first cousin. We examined parental educational attainment and household income in relation to preterm birth and small for gestational age using Cox regression. Household income was only weakly related to these outcomes. Paternal education was strongly associated with the outcomes only in the cohort analyses. Maternal education was inversely associated with preterm birth only in the cohort analyses, where the least educated women had the highest risk. Maternal education was inversely associated with the risk of small for gestational age in cohort analyses, attenuated between mothers who were siblings, and not present between children who were siblings. For example, the hazard ratio of preterm birth of women with a college/university degree when compared to women with only mandatory education was 0.64 (95% confidence interval: 0.60–0.67) in the cohort analysis, 0.90 (0.78–1.04) between mothers who were siblings, and 1.01 (0.82–1.24) between children who were siblings. The corresponding hazard ratios of small for gestational age were 0.54 (0.52–0.56), 0.72 (0.63–0.83), and 1.02 (0.84–1.24). This suggests that the associations were partly explained by factors shared between mothers who are siblings. In conclusion, the early life circumstances of mothers appear to be important in understanding the association between education, preterm birth and small for gestational age.

Suggested Citation

  • Mortensen, Laust H., 2013. "Socioeconomic inequality in birth weight and gestational age in Denmark 1996–2007: Using a family-based approach to explore alternative explanations," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 1-7.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:76:y:2013:i:c:p:1-7
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.08.021
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953612006284
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.08.021?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. Reime, Birgit & Ratner, Pamela A. & Tomaselli-Reime, Sandra N. & Kelly, Ann & Schuecking, Beate A. & Wenzlaff, Paul, 2006. "The role of mediating factors in the association between social deprivation and low birth weight in Germany," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(7), pages 1731-1744, April.
    2. Sandewall, Örjan & Cesarini, David & Johannesson, Magnus, 2014. "The co-twin methodology and returns to schooling — testing a critical assumption," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 1-10.
    3. Dowd, Jennifer Beam, 2007. "Early childhood origins of the income/health gradient: The role of maternal health behaviors," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(6), pages 1202-1213, September.
    4. Nancy Krieger & Jarvis T Chen & Brent A Coull & Joe V Selby, 2005. "Lifetime Socioeconomic Position and Twins' Health: An Analysis of 308 Pairs of United States Women Twins," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 2(7), pages 1-1, July.
    5. Hoffmann, Rasmus, 2011. "Socioeconomic inequalities in old-age mortality: A comparison of Denmark and the USA," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(12), pages 1986-1992, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Amin, Vikesh & Lundborg, Petter & Rooth, Dan-Olof, 2015. "The intergenerational transmission of schooling: Are mothers really less important than fathers?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 100-117.
    2. Petter Lundborg & Carl Hampus Lyttkens & Paul Nystedt, 2016. "The Effect of Schooling on Mortality: New Evidence From 50,000 Swedish Twins," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(4), pages 1135-1168, August.
    3. Borga, Liyousew G. & Münich, Daniel & Kukla, Lubomir, 2021. "The socioeconomic gradient in child health and noncognitive skills: Evidence from the Czech Republic," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    4. Smed, Sinne & Hansen, Lars Garn, 2018. "Consumer Valuation of Health Attributes in Food," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 43(2), May.
    5. Teresa Castro Martín, 2010. "Single motherhood and low birthweight in Spain," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 22(27), pages 863-890.
    6. Plamen Nikolov & Hongjian Wang & Kevin Acker, 2020. "Wage premium of Communist Party membership: Evidence from China," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 309-338, August.
    7. Szanton, Sarah L. & Thorpe, Roland J. & Whitfield, Keith, 2010. "Life-course financial strain and health in African-Americans," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 259-265, July.
    8. Bennett, Patrick, 2018. "The heterogeneous effects of education on crime: Evidence from Danish administrative twin data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 160-177.
    9. Terje A Eikemo & Rasmus Hoffmann & Margarete C Kulik & Ivana Kulhánová & Marlen Toch-Marquardt & Gwenn Menvielle & Caspar Looman & Domantas Jasilionis & Pekka Martikainen & Olle Lundberg & Johan P Mac, 2014. "How Can Inequalities in Mortality Be Reduced? A Quantitative Analysis of 6 Risk Factors in 21 European Populations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(11), pages 1-1, November.
    10. Swaminathan, Harini & Sharma, Anurag & Shah, Narendra G., 2019. "Does the relationship between income and child health differ across income groups? Evidence from India," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 57-73.
    11. Gerdtham, Ulf-G & Lundborg, Petter & Lyttkens, Carl Hampus & Nystedt, Paul, 2012. "Do Socioeconomic Factors Really Explain Income-Related Inequalities in Health? Applying a Twin Design to Standard Decomposition Analysis," Working Papers 2012:21, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    12. Jackson, Margot I., 2015. "Early childhood WIC participation, cognitive development and academic achievement," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 145-153.
    13. Khanam, Rasheda & Nghiem, Hong Son & Connelly, Luke B., 2009. "Child health and the income gradient: Evidence from Australia," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 805-817, July.
    14. Savelyev, Peter A. & Ward, Benjamin C. & Krueger, Robert F. & McGue, Matt, 2022. "Health endowments, schooling allocation in the family, and longevity: Evidence from US twins," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    15. Rasheda Khanam & Hong Son Nghiem & Luke Brian Connelly, 2014. "What Roles Do Contemporaneous And Cumulative Incomes Play In The Income–Child Health Gradient For Young Children? Evidence From An Australian Panel," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(8), pages 879-893, August.
    16. Petter Lundborg & Anton Nilsson & Dan-Olof Rooth, 2016. "The health-schooling relationship: evidence from Swedish twins," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 29(4), pages 1191-1215, October.
    17. Ukaj MIC & Mustafa Topxhiu RAHMIJE, 2019. "The returns to investment in education: Some theoretical and empirical insights," Economics and Applied Informatics, "Dunarea de Jos" University of Galati, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, issue 1, pages 193-203.
    18. Jeon, Boyoung & Noguchi, Haruko & Kwon, Soonman & Ito, Tomoko & Tamiya, Nanako, 2017. "Disability, poverty, and role of the basic livelihood security system on health services utilization among the elderly in South Korea," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 175-183.
    19. Daniel Kuehnle, 2013. "The causal effect of family income on child health: A re-examination using an instrumental variables approach," Working Papers 133, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    20. Daniel Kim & Adrianna Saada, 2013. "The Social Determinants of Infant Mortality and Birth Outcomes in Western Developed Nations: A Cross-Country Systematic Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-40, June.

    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:socmed:v:76:y:2013:i:c:p:1-7. 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/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    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.