| Abstract: |
In this paper, we model the consequences of childhood health on adult health
and socio-economic status outcomes in China using a new sample of middle aged
and older Chinese respondents. Modeled after the American Health and
Retirement Survey (HRS), the CHARLS Pilot survey respondents are forty-five
years and older in two quite distinct provinces – Zhejiang, a high growth
industrialized province on the East Coast, and Gansu, a largely agricultural
and poor province in the West. Childhood health in CHARLS relies on two
measures that proxy for different dimensions of health during the childhood
years. The first is a retrospective self-evaluation using a standard
five-point scale (excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor) of general state
of one’s health when one was less than 16 years old. The second is adult
height often thought to be a good measure of levels of nutrition during early
childhood and the prenatal period. We relate both these childhood health
measures to adult health and SES outcomes during the adult years. We find
strong effects of childhood health on adult health outcomes particularly among
Chinese women and strong effects on adult BMI particularly for Chinese men. |