Maternal Undernutrition in Adolescence and Child Human Capital Development Over the Life Course: Evidence from an International Cohort Study
利用埃塞俄比亚、印度、秘鲁和越南的国际队列数据，估计母亲青春期营养不良对子代从婴儿期到青少年期生长和发育的影响，发现母亲青春期营养状况对子代身高有持续正向影响，但对学业成绩无显著效应。
Adolescence has been highlighted as a period when environments are critical for the human capital development of women, and thus of their children, but evidence on this from low‐ and middle‐income countries is scarce. We estimate the effect of mother’s adolescent undernutrition on offspring growth and development from infancy through adolescence using data from an international cohort study in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam, and instrumental variables estimation that employs rainfall shocks during mother’s adolescence as instruments for mother’s nutritional status. We find a positive and significant effect of mother’s adolescent nutritional status on child height‐for‐age in infancy that persists through to adolescence, and evidence that this may manifest mainly through a biological channel. Our results also support a significant impact of rainfall shocks during mother’s early adolescence on mother’s adult height and child growth from infancy to adolescence. We find no significant effect of mother’s adolescent nutritional status and rainfall shocks during mother’s adolescence on child achievement tests scores, however.