Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise: Is there a Causal Relationship Between Child Health and Human Capital Development?

There are many possible pathways between parental education, income, and health, and child health and education, but only some of them have been explored in the literature. This essay focuses on links between parental socioeconomic status (as measured by education, income, occupation, or in some cases area of residence) and child health, and between child health and child education. Specifically, I ask two questions: What is the evidence regarding whether parental socioeconomic status affects child health? And, what is the evidence relating child health to future outcomes? I show that there is now strong evidence of these links, but that it is difficult to say how large the overall effect of health might be or whether it explains a significant amount of the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status. 3 When economists think of " human capital, " they often mean education. A large body of literature has established that investments in education pay off in the form of higher future earnings, and that on average, differences in education can explain a significant fraction of the variation in wages and incomes among adults, as well as variation in many other positive outcomes. But what determines a child's educational success? Most studies point to family background as the number one factor. However, this raises a " chicken and egg " problem. We