Inequalities at birth: stable socioeconomic differences in birth outcomes in three British cohorts

Abstract

In this article, I investigate the association between maternal socioeconomic status (SES) and children’s birth outcomes (birth weight) across three different birth cohorts. I also perform mediation analysis to assess the degree to which maternal smoking habits during pregnancy account for this relationship. I draw from three UK cohort studies: the 1958 National Child Developmental Study (NCDS); the 1970 British Cohort (B70); and the 2001 Millennium Cohort study (MCS). There are two main results. First, low-SES mothers are more likely to have children with poor birth outcomes and this association has remained persistent throughout the last 50 years. Second, smoking explains a large part of this association, but only in the two most recent cohorts.