Department of Health Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), London WC2A 2AE, UK.
Soc Sci Med. 2019 Sep;237:112451. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112451. Epub 2019 Jul 29.
This study examines the impact of the Greek recession on newborn health. Using a large administrative dataset of 838,700 births from 2008 to 2015, our analysis shows that birth weight (BW) and pregnancy length are generally procyclical with respect to prenatal economic climate, while the risk of low birth weight and preterm birth are both countercyclical. We report heterogeneity in the relationship between business cycle fluctuations during pregnancy and newborn health across socioeconomic groups. Birth outcomes of children born to low socioeconomic status (SES) families are sensitive to economic fluctuations during the first and third trimesters of the pregnancy, whereas those of high-SES newborns respond to economic volatility only in the first trimester. These results are robust, even after using different measures of economic climate and uncertainty. After accounting for potential selection into pregnancy, we find that in utero exposure to economic crisis is linked with a BW loss, which is driven by the low-SES children. Our findings have social policy implications. The impact of economic crisis on birth indicators is more detrimental for the low-SES children, resulting in a widening of the BW gap between children of low- and high-SES families. This could, in turn, exacerbate long-term socioeconomic and health inequalities and hinder social mobility.
这项研究考察了希腊经济衰退对新生儿健康的影响。我们使用了 2008 年至 2015 年期间来自 838700 例出生的大型行政数据集，分析表明，出生体重（BW）和孕期长度通常与产前经济环境呈顺周期性，而低出生体重和早产的风险呈逆周期性。我们报告了在妊娠期间商业周期波动与新生儿健康之间的关系在社会经济群体之间存在异质性。低社会经济地位（SES）家庭的孩子的出生结果对妊娠前三个月和第三个月的经济波动敏感，而高 SES 新生儿的结果仅对妊娠前三个月的经济波动敏感。即使使用了不同的经济气候和不确定性衡量标准，这些结果也是稳健的。在考虑到潜在的妊娠选择后，我们发现，在子宫内接触经济危机与 BW 损失有关，这主要是由低 SES 儿童驱动的。我们的研究结果具有社会政策意义。经济危机对出生指标的影响对低 SES 儿童更为不利，导致低 SES 家庭和高 SES 家庭之间的 BW 差距扩大。这反过来又可能加剧长期的社会经济和健康不平等，并阻碍社会流动性。
