Center for Policy, Population & Health Research, School of Medicine, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico.
School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2024 May 14;19(5):e0303108. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0303108. eCollection 2024.
Investment in health has been proposed as a mechanism to promote upward social mobility. Previous analyses have reported inconsistent estimates of the returns to investment in health in Mexico based on different models for different years. We aim to estimate returns for Mexico using data from four time points Adult height and labor income are drawn from the periodical national health and nutrition surveys-a group of relatively standardized surveys-that are representative of individuals living in the country in 2000, 2006, 2012 & 2018. These surveys collect anthropometric measurements and information on individuals' labor income. We estimated Mincerian models separately for men and women using OLS, Heckman, instrumental variables, and Heckman with instrumental variables models. Our results indicate significant and positive returns to health for the four surveys, similar in magnitude across years for women and with variations for men. By 2018, returns to health were about 7.4% per additional centimeter in height for females and 9.3% for males. Investments in health and nutrition during childhood and adolescence that increase health capital-measured as adult height-may promote social mobility in Mexico and similar countries to the extent that these investments differentially increase health capital among the poor.
人们提出，对卫生保健进行投资是促进社会向上流动的一种机制。以往的分析报告根据不同年份的不同模型，报告了墨西哥卫生保健投资回报的结果不一致。我们旨在使用来自四个时间点的数据为墨西哥进行估计，这些数据来自周期性的国家健康和营养调查，这是一组具有代表性的、生活在 2000 年、2006 年、2012 年和 2018 年的个体的相对标准化调查。这些调查收集了人体测量数据和个体劳动收入信息。我们分别使用 OLS、Heckman、工具变量和 Hechman 与工具变量模型为男性和女性估计明瑟尔模型。我们的结果表明，这四个调查都显示出健康的显著正回报，女性的回报在不同年份都相似，而男性的回报则有所不同。到 2018 年，女性身高每增加 1 厘米，健康回报约为 7.4%，男性为 9.3%。在儿童和青少年时期进行的卫生和营养投资，可以增加健康资本——以成年身高衡量——这可能会促进墨西哥和类似国家的社会流动，因为这些投资会在不同程度上增加贫困人口的健康资本。
