IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/26343.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Maternal and Fetal Health Effects of Working during Pregnancy

Author

Listed:
  • Dhaval M. Dave
  • Muzhe Yang

Abstract

We provide some of the first empirical evidence of maternal and fetal health effects of working during pregnancy by using a unique dataset from the New Jersey Department of Health that includes information not only on pregnancy and birth outcomes but also on maternal employment. We match the mother’s occupation with the Metabolic Equivalent of Task, provided by the Census Occupational Classification System and used as a measure for the strenuousness of the work activities performed. We find robust evidence that working in a relatively more strenuous job during pregnancy raises the likelihood of fetal macrosomia by about 1.5 percentage points. There are no statistically or economically significant effects on other birth outcomes. Our study further indicates an under-studied link between gestational diabetes (a known risk factor for fetal macrosomia) and intensive physical activities at work during pregnancy, potentially mediated by disrupted sleep due to greater work intensity.

Suggested Citation

  • Dhaval M. Dave & Muzhe Yang, 2019. "Maternal and Fetal Health Effects of Working during Pregnancy," NBER Working Papers 26343, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26343
    Note: CH EH LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w26343.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ralitza Gueorguieva & Jody L. Sindelar & Tracy A. Falba & Jason M. Fletcher & Patricia Keenan & Ran Wu & William T. Gallo, 2009. "The Impact of Occupation on Self-Rated Health: Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Evidence from the Health and Retirement Survey," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 64(1), pages 118-124.
    2. Henry Saffer & Dhaval Dave, 2005. "Mental Illness and the Demand for Alcohol, Cocaine, and Cigarettes," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 43(2), pages 229-246, April.
    3. Inas Kelly & Dhaval Dave & Jody Sindelar & William Gallo, 2014. "The impact of early occupational choice on health behaviors," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 737-770, December.
    4. Emily Oster, 2019. "Unobservable Selection and Coefficient Stability: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 187-204, April.
    5. Thomas Barnay, 2016. "Health, work and working conditions: a review of the European economic literature," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 17(6), pages 693-709, July.
    6. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769.
    7. Henry Saffer & Dhaval Dave & Michael Grossman & Leigh Ann Leung, 2013. "Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Differences in Physical Activity," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 7(4), pages 378-410.
    8. Hope Corman & Theodore J. Joyce & Michael Grossman, 1987. "Birth Outcome Production Function in the United States," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 22(3), pages 339-360.
    9. Dave, Dhaval M. & Kelly, Inas Rashad, 2012. "How does the business cycle affect eating habits?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 254-262.
    10. Dhaval Dave & Sandra L. Decker & Robert Kaestner & Kosali I. Simon, 2015. "The Effect of Medicaid Expansions in the Late 1980s and Early 1990s on the Labor Supply of Pregnant Women," American Journal of Health Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(2), pages 165-193, Spring.
    11. Karen Smith Conway & Andrea Kutinova, 2006. "Maternal health: does prenatal care make a difference?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(5), pages 461-488, May.
    12. Homer, C.J. & James, S.A. & Siegel, E., 1990. "Work-related psychosocial stress and risk of preterm, low birthweight delivery," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 80(2), pages 173-177.
    13. Colman, Gregory & Dave, Dhaval, 2013. "Exercise, physical activity, and exertion over the business cycle," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 11-20.
    14. Hope Corman & Dhaval Dave & Nancy E. Reichman, 2018. "Evolution of the Infant Health Production Function," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(1), pages 6-47, July.
    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. Kajal Lahiri & Liu Yang, 2021. "Estimating Endogenous Ordered Response Panel Data Models with an Application to Income Gradient in Child Health," Sankhya B: The Indian Journal of Statistics, Springer;Indian Statistical Institute, vol. 83(2), pages 207-243, November.

    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. Dhaval M. Dave & Muzhe Yang, 2022. "Maternal and fetal health effects of working during pregnancy," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 57-102, March.
    2. Inas Kelly & Dhaval Dave & Jody Sindelar & William Gallo, 2014. "The impact of early occupational choice on health behaviors," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 737-770, December.
    3. Joelle Abramowitz, 2016. "The connection between working hours and body mass index in the U.S.: a time use analysis," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 131-154, March.
    4. Gregory Colman & Dhaval Dave, 2018. "Unemployment and Health Behaviors over the Business Cycle: A Longitudinal View," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(1), pages 93-120, July.
    5. Papps, Kerry L. & Bryson, Alex & Reade, J. James, 2023. "Running Up That Hill: Fitness in the Face of Recession," IZA Discussion Papers 16410, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Andrea Menclova, 2013. "The Effects of Unemployment on Prenatal Care Use and Infant Health," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 34(4), pages 400-420, December.
    7. Eichengreen, Barry & Aksoy, Cevat Giray & Saka, Orkun, 2021. "Revenge of the experts: Will COVID-19 renew or diminish public trust in science?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    8. Arne Henningsen & Guy Low & David Wuepper & Tobias Dalhaus & Hugo Storm & Dagim Belay & Stefan Hirsch, 2024. "Estimating Causal Effects with Observational Data: Guidelines for Agricultural and Applied Economists," IFRO Working Paper 2024/03, University of Copenhagen, Department of Food and Resource Economics.
    9. Wang, Huixia & Wang, Chenggang & Halliday, Timothy J., 2018. "Health and health inequality during the great recession: Evidence from the PSID," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 17-30.
    10. Sansone, Dario, 2019. "Pink work: Same-sex marriage, employment and discrimination," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    11. Colombo, Emilio & Rotondi, Valentina & Stanca, Luca, 2018. "Macroeconomic conditions and health: Inspecting the transmission mechanism," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 29-37.
    12. Johanna Catherine Maclean, 2016. "Does Leaving School in an Economic Downturn Persistently Affect Body Weight? Evidence from Panel Data," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 122-148, January.
    13. Ana Lucia Abeliansky & Holger Strulik, 2023. "Health and aging before and after retirement," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(4), pages 2825-2855, October.
    14. Siverskog, Jonathan & Henriksson, Martin, 2022. "The health cost of reducing hospital bed capacity," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 313(C).
    15. Alloush, Mo & Bloem, Jeffrey R., 2022. "Neighborhood violence, poverty, and psychological well-being," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    16. Tang, Can & Zhao, Zhong, 2022. "Informal institution meets child development," MERIT Working Papers 2022-032, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    17. Strulik, Holger, 2022. "A health economic theory of occupational choice, aging, and longevity," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    18. Saraswat, Deepak, 2024. "Gender composition of children and sanitation behavior in India," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    19. Mai, Nhat Chi, 2022. "Socioeconomic effects of collectivist and individualist education: A comparison between North and South Vietnam," OSF Preprints n9pyw, Center for Open Science.
    20. Bishop, Kelly C. & Kuminoff, Nicolai V. & Mathes, Sophie M. & Murphy, Alvin D., 2024. "The marginal cost of mortality risk reduction: Evidence from housing markets," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:nbr:nberwo:26343. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.