The rise and fall of socioeconomic status gradients in height around the world
16 days ago
- #Human Capital
- #Socioeconomic Status
- #Child Health
- Parental socioeconomic status (SES) significantly influences children's lifelong health.
- Children from lower-SES backgrounds are more likely to experience poor health, affecting their education and income in adulthood.
- The SES-health gradient is evident in both rich and poor countries, impacting individual wellbeing and economic development.
- Research focuses on height as a measure of health due to its objectivity and correlation with other health and economic outcomes.
- The relationship between child height and maternal education follows an inverted-U shape, increasing until adolescence and then declining.
- Data from LMICs shows the SES-height gradient is small at birth but increases steeply by age five.
- Adolescence presents a window of opportunity for catch-up growth in height for low-SES children.
- Biological mechanisms, such as delayed adolescent growth spurts in low-SES children, contribute to the inverted-U gradient pattern.
- Behavioral responses, like early entry into adult roles, may affect growth but show limited evidence in explaining the gradient.
- The study underscores adolescence as a critical period for human capital investments, alongside early childhood.