Abstract
We utilize longitudinal data on nearly 1800 children in Vietnam to study the predictive power of alternative measures of early childhood undernutrition for outcomes at age eight years: weight-for-age (WAZ8), height-for-age (HAZ8), and education (reading, math and receptive vocabulary). We apply two-stage procedures to derive unpredicted weight gain and height growth in the first year of life. Our estimates show that a standard deviation (SD) increase in birth weight is associated with an increase of 0.14 (standard error [SE]: 0.03) in WAZ8 and 0.12 (SE: 0.02) in HAZ8. These are significantly lower than the corresponding figures for a SD increase in unpredicted weight gain: 0.51 (SE: 0.02) and 0.33 (SE: 0.02).The heterogeneity of the predictive power of early childhood nutrition indicators for mid-childhood outcomes reflects both life-cycle considerations (prenatal versus postnatal) and the choice of anthropometric measure (height versus weight). Even though all the nutritional indicators that involve postnatal nutritional status are important predictors for all the mid-childhood outcomes, there are some important differences between the indicators on weight and height. The magnitude of associations with the outcomes is one aspect of the heterogeneity. More importantly there is a component of height-for-age z-score (at age 12 months) that adds predictive power for all the mid-childhood outcomes beyond that of birth weight and weight gain in the first year of life.
Highlights
Studies on the importance of early-life anthropometry for later human capital development recently have become prominent. Behrman and Rosenzweig (2004), Black et al (2007), Victora et al (2008), Rosenzweig and Zhang (2013), and Figlio et al (2014) find birth weight to have significant associations with long-run adult health, education and earnings
Our estimates show that a standard deviation (SD) increase in birth weight is associated with an increase of 0.14 in Weight-for-age z score at age 8 years (WAZ8) and 0.12 (SE: 0.02) in Height-for-age z score at age 8 years (HAZ8)
We find that a standard deviation higher unpredicted weight gain in the first year of life generally is more associated with positive outcomes in mid-childhood than are the adverse outcomes associated with a standard deviation lower birth weight
Summary
Studies on the importance of early-life anthropometry for later human capital development recently have become prominent. Behrman and Rosenzweig (2004), Black et al (2007), Victora et al (2008), Rosenzweig and Zhang (2013), and Figlio et al (2014) find birth weight to have significant associations with long-run adult health, education and earnings. Huang et al (2013) evaluated the relative associations of birth weight and postnatal growth (weight gain, height growth, or head circumference growth) with cognition and behavioral development in over 8000 Chinese children. The conditionally unpredicted height-for-age is useful for comparison of predictive powers of the indicators on height growth versus that of weight gain in the first year of life. We find that a standard deviation higher unpredicted weight gain (height growth) in the first year of life generally is more associated with positive outcomes in mid-childhood than are the adverse outcomes associated with a standard deviation lower birth weight. We find that height-for-age z-score at age one year contains a component that adds explanatory power for the variation of all the mid-child outcomes, beyond that of birth weight and weight gain in the first year of life
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