title: Endowments and parental investments in infancy and early childhood.
abstract: This article tests whether parents reinforce or compensate for child endowments. We estimate how the difference in birth weight across siblings impacts specific parental investments: breast-feeding, well-baby visits, immunizations, and preschool attendance. Our results indicate that normal-birthweight children are 5%-11% more likely to receive early childhood parental investments than their low-birth-weight siblings. Moreover, the presence of additional low-birth-weight siblings in the household increases the likelihood of investments such as well-baby visits and immunizations for normal-birth-weight children. These results suggest that parental investments in early childhood tend to reinforce endowment differences.
authors.affiliation: RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA 90407, USA. datar@rand.org
authors.forename: Ashlesha
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Datar
authors.forename: M Rebecca
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Kilburn
authors.forename: David S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Loughran
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001724:Birth Weight; D001942:Breast Feeding; D002662:Child Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D002675:Child, Preschool; D018479:Early Intervention, Educational / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007114:Immunization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D007223:Infant; D007224:Infant Care; D007230:Infant, Low Birth Weight; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D016018:Least-Squares Analysis; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D017059:Models, Econometric; D009035:Mothers; D016487:Parenting; D040841:Resource Allocation; D014481:United States