This paper analyzes the relationship between maternal labor supply and children's cognitive development, using a sample of three- and four-year-old children of female respondents from the 1986 National Longitudinal Surveys Youth Cohort (NLSY). Respondents in the NLSY were aged 21 to 29 in 1986; thus...

This paper uses matched data on the elderly and their children to study the provision of time by children to the elderly. It develops a Tobit model as well as a structural model to analyze the determinants of this decision. The main determinants of the amount of time given to parents appear to...

This paper specifies and estimates an econometric model of low and very low birthweight rates for counties in the U.S. for the years 1975-1984. We focus on the impact of several specific public policy actions on use of prenatal care and the subsequent effect on birthweight outcomes. Our results...

This paper examines the bequest\gift behavior of altruistic parents who do not know their children's abilities and cannot observe their children's work effort. Parents are likely to respond to this information problem by making larger bequests to higher earning children and by using their...

Perhaps no single statistic raises more concern about post War changes in the U.S. family than the proportion of the elderly living alone. Since 1940 the proportion of elderly living alone and in institutions has risen dramatically. While demographics appear to explain much of the change in the...

The model presented in this paper emphasizes the importance of the mother's nutritional intake as a determinant of infant health. Using cross-sectional market averages for 1980 and 1981 in Japan, we find that the nutrient intake of the mother during pregnancy is a potential determinant of...

This paper relies on birth and death lists from plantation records to investigate the causes of low birth weight and poor health of young slave children. The sources of deprivation can be traced to the fetal period. The slave work routine was arduous overall and particularily intense during...

Underenumeration of vital events is a problem familiar topeople who work with historical demographic records. This paper proposes a method for recovering information about neonatal mortality.The approach utilizes average heights of young children to predict the birth weight of American slaves....

In this paper empirical evidence is presented on the determinants of obesity in youth in the U.S., with particular emphasis on isolating the effects of diet and parent's fatness on the obesity outcome. The results show that parents fatness has statistically important impacts on skinfold growth...