IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/qld/uq2004/419.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Unplanned Pregnancy & the Impact on Sibling Health Outcomes

Author

Abstract

This work considers the impact that a new sibling has on a child?s health status. Objective health outcomes are observed before a new addition(s) to the family, with the same outcomes being observed afterwards. In addition, this work examines whether planning matters with respect to this dilution effect. That is, we argue that dilution effects should be higher in the event that an additional sibling is unplanned. To our knowledge this is unexplored in the literature with respect to all areas of parental resource allocation. The data used relates to a sample of approximately 2000 children from Peru. These children?s parents have been surveyed at 1 year and again at 5 years. To test our hypothesis we exploit data from both waves of the survey. For health outcomes the impact on height for age z scores and weight for age z scores are considered. The results highlight significant independent effects on both height and weight for age when an unplanned sibling is added to the household. In addition, the results show that it is the most vulnerable children that are impacted the most by an unplanned sibling. A subsequent analysis highlights that it is the lowest socio- economic households that are the most likely to have an unplanned sibling.

Suggested Citation

  • Grace Lordan, 2011. "Unplanned Pregnancy & the Impact on Sibling Health Outcomes," Discussion Papers Series 419, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    • Handle: RePEc:qld:uq2004:419
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://economics.uq.edu.au/files/44802/419.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Horton, Susan, 1988. "Birth Order and Child Nutritional Status: Evidence from the Philippines," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(2), pages 341-354, January.
    2. Hongbin Li & Junsen Zhang & Yi Zhu, 2008. "The quantity-Quality trade-Off of children In a developing country: Identification using chinese twins," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 45(1), pages 223-243, February.
    3. Chen, Yuyu & Li, Hongbin, 2009. "Mother's education and child health: Is there a nurturing effect?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 413-426, March.
    4. Behrman, Jere R., 1988. "Nutrition, health, birth order and seasonality : Intrahousehold allocation among children in rural India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 43-62, February.
    5. Ashlesha Datar & M. Kilburn & David Loughran, 2010. "Endowments and parental investments in infancy and early childhood," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 47(1), pages 145-162, February.
    6. James J. Heckman, 2007. "The Economics, Technology and Neuroscience of Human Capability Formation," NBER Working Papers 13195, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. David M. Blau, 1999. "The Effect Of Income On Child Development," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(2), pages 261-276, May.
    8. Duncan Thomas & John Strauss & Maria-Helena Henriques, 1991. "How Does Mother's Education Affect Child Height?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 26(2), pages 183-211.
    9. Monazza Aslam, 2009. "Education Gender Gaps in Pakistan: Is the Labor Market to Blame?," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(4), pages 747-784, July.
    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. Deniz Karaoğlan & Dürdane Şirin Saraçoğlu, 2018. "Socio-Economic Factors Affecting Early Childhood Health: the Case of Turkey," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 11(3), pages 1051-1075, June.
    2. Deniz Karaoglan & Serap Sagir & Meltem Dayioglu & Durdane Sirin Saracoglu, 2023. "The Impact of Maternal Education on Early Childhood Development: The Case of Turkey," Working Papers 2023-02, Gebze Technical University, Department of Economics.
    3. Headey, Derek & Hoddinott, John & Ali, Disha & Tesfaye, Roman & Dereje, Mekdim, 2015. "The Other Asian Enigma: Explaining the Rapid Reduction of Undernutrition in Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 749-761.
    4. Deniz Karaoglan & Serap Sagir & Meltem Dayioglu & Durdane Sirin Saracoglu, 2023. "The Impact Of Maternal Education On Early Childhood Development: The Case Of Turkey," ERC Working Papers 2303, ERC - Economic Research Center, Middle East Technical University, revised Jul 2023.
    5. Headey, Derek D., 2014. "An analysis of trends and determinants of child undernutrition in Ethiopia, 2000‐2011:," ESSP working papers 70, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    6. Le, Kien & Nguyen, My, 2020. "Shedding light on maternal education and child health in developing countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    7. Aydogan Ulker, 2016. "Body size at birth, physical development and cognitive outcomes in early childhood: evidence from the Longitudinal Survey of Australian Children," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(2), pages 142-166, April.
    8. Liyousew G. Borga & Myroslav Pidkuyko, 2018. "Whoever Has Will Be Given More: Child Endowment and Human Capital Investment," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp616, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    9. Outes, Ingo & Porter, Catherine & Sanchez, Alan & Escobal, Javier, 2011. "Early Nutrition and Cognition in Peru: A Within-Sibling Investigation," Working Papers 2011-017, Banco Central de Reserva del Perú.
    10. Deniz Karaoğlan & Meltem Dayioğlu & Dürdane Şirin Saraçoğlu & Serap Sağir, 2024. "Unlevel Playing Field: Socioeconomic Determinants of Early Childhood Development in Turkiye," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 17(4), pages 1741-1770, August.
    11. Wei Fan & Catherine Porter, 2020. "Reinforcement or compensation? Parental responses to children’s revealed human capital levels," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(1), pages 233-270, January.
    12. Maclean, Johanna Catherine & Popovici, Ioana & French, Michael T., 2016. "Are natural disasters in early childhood associated with mental health and substance use disorders as an adult?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 78-91.
    13. Sánchez, Alan & Favara, Marta & Sheridan, Margaret & Behrman, Jere, 2024. "Does early nutrition predict cognitive skills during later childhood? Evidence from two developing countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    14. Ahsan, Md Nazmul & Maharaj, Riddhi, 2018. "Parental human capital and child health at birth in India," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 130-149.
    15. Michele Giannola, 2024. "Parental Investments and Intra-household Inequality in Child Human Capital: Evidence from a Survey Experiment," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(658), pages 671-727.
    16. Karimi, Seyed M. & Basu, Anirban, 2018. "The effect of prenatal exposure to Ramadan on children’s height," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 69-83.
    17. Hoddinott, John, 1997. "Water, health, and income," FCND discussion papers 25, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    18. Timothy J. Hatton, 2015. "Stature and Sibship: Historical Evidence," CEH Discussion Papers 039, Centre for Economic History, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    19. Jere R. Behrman, 1994. "Intra-family Distribution in Developing Countries," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 33(3), pages 253-296.
    20. Deniz Karaoğlan & Dürdane Şirin Saracoğlu, 2016. "Socio-Economic Factors Affecting Early Childhood Health: The Case of Turkey," ERC Working Papers 1614, ERC - Economic Research Center, Middle East Technical University, revised 2016.

    More about this item

    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:qld:uq2004:419. 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: SOE IT (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/decuqau.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.