The response of household parental investment to child endowments

Abstract

Birth weight, Parental investment, Test scores, D13,

Birth Order and Delinquency: Evidence from Denmark and Florida

“…Incidentally, it is not clear what parents would do were they to know the results of the birth order literature. Much of the literature from Western developed societies presents evidence that parents actively attempt to invest more resources in their relatively disadvantaged children, suggesting that parents have a taste for redistribution within the family (Loughran, Kilburn, and Datar 2008;Hsin 2012;Bernardi 2014;Figlio et al 2014;Hsin and Felfe 2014;Bharadwaj, Eberhard, and Neilson 2018). But several recent papers (Datar, Kilburn, and Loughran 2010;Frijters et al 2013) argue that parents are likely to invest more resources in their relatively advantaged children, and others (Royer 2009;Kelly 2011) find no evidence one way or the other.…”

Intra-Household Resource Allocation: Do Parents Reduce or Reinforce Child Cognitive Ability Gaps?

“…They find that normal birth weight children are 5-11% more likely to receive early childhood investments than their lower birth weight siblings. In contrast, Loughran et al (2008) find that the parents in the NLSY invest more in the siblings with low birth weight. Royer (2009) finds no evidence either way, with parental investments in neonatal care not varying between twins who differed in their birth weight.…”

“…Behrman et al, 1982;Royer, 2009;Li et al, 2010) or siblings (e.g. Rosenzweig and Wolpin, 1988;Quisumbing, 1994;Loughran et al, 2008;Datar et al, 2010), and much of the focus has been on health (such as survival rates, birthweight or weight-for-age) of children in developing countries (e.g. Rosenzweig and Schultz, 1982;Rosenzweig and Wolpin, 1988;Pitt et al, 1990).…”

“…Though, some recent research has focused on health endowments in developed countries (e.g. Del Bono et al, 2008;Loughran et al, 2008;Hsin, 2009;Kelly, 2009;Royer, 2009;Datar et al, 2010). More generally, see Almond and Currie (2010) for a review of this research.…”

The Response of Parental Time Investments to the Child's Skills and Health

“…Some studies provide 'indirect evidence' (as called by Almond and Mazumder, 2013) of parental investments responsiveness by comparing estimations of the impact of the child's endowments on outcomes measured later in life using and without using family (sibling) fixedeffect. Loughran et al (2008) explain the logic behind this indirect evidence and suggest that a larger (smaller) effect of the child's endowments when using family fixed-effect would be indicative of a reinforcing (compensating) behaviour. By looking at birth weight effect on the child's cognitive outcomes later in life, they find that parents compensate for low birth weight, at least when looking at long-term outcomes.…”