Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T09:22:59.199Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Household expenditure and child health in Vietnam: analysis of longitudinal data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2021

Trong-Anh Trinh Open the ORCID record for Trong-Anh Trinh [Opens in a new window] ,
Preety Srivastava  and
Sarah Brown
Trong-Anh Trinh*
Affiliation:
School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Preety Srivastava
Affiliation:
School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Sarah Brown
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

While the relationship between socioeconomic status and child health has been studied extensively in developed countries, evidence is limited for developing countries. This study makes an important contribution by examining the relationship between child health and household socioeconomic status in Vietnam, using household expenditure as an alternative measure. This also allows us to explore the mechanisms via which income affects child health, in which household consumption arguably plays a crucial role. We employ different measures of health that allow us to examine both long-run and short-run effects, and two alternative instrumental variables, the unemployment rate and rainfall deviation, to address the potential endogeneity of household expenditure. We find evidence of a strong positive impact of household expenditure on child health and the findings are consistent across age groups. Specifically, a 10% increase in expenditure will result in a weight gain of 213–541 g in a “typical” child. We also explore the effect of a range of exogenous adverse economic shocks on children's health.

Keywords

BMIchild healthhousehold expendituresocioeconomic statusVietnam

JEL classification

C3: Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models • Multiple Variables I1: Health D1: Household Behavior and Family Economics
Type
Research Paper
Information
Journal of Demographic Economics , Volume 88 , Issue 3 , September 2022 , pp. 351 - 377
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Apouey, B. and Geoffard, P.-Y. (2013) Family income and child health in the UK. Journal of Health Economics 32(4), 715–727.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2011) Measures of Socioeconomic Status. Catalogue no. 1244.0.55.001. Australian Bureau of Statistics.Google Scholar
Baird, S., Friedman, J. and Schady, N. (2011) Aggregate income shocks and infant mortality in the developing world. Review of Economics and Statistics 93(3), 847–856.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beegle, K., Dehejia, R. and Gatti, R. (2009) Why should we care about child labor? The education, labor market, and health consequences of child labor. Journal of Human Resources 44(4), 871–889.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyle, M. H., Racine, Y., Georgiades, K., Snelling, D., Hong, S., Omariba, W. and Rao-Melacini, P. (2006) The influence of economic development level, household wealth and maternal education on child health in the developing world. Social Science and Medicine 63(8), 2242–2254.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Burgess, S. M., Propper, C. and Rigg, J. (2004) The impact of low income on child health: Evidence from a birth cohort study. LSE STICERD Research Paper No. CASE085.Google Scholar
Cameron, L. and Williams, J. (2009) Is the relationship between socioeconomic status and health stronger for older children in developing countries? Demography 46(2), 303–324.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carter, M. R. and Maluccio, J. A. (2003) Social capital and coping with economic shocks: an analysis of stunting of South African children. World Development 31(7), 1147–1163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Case, A., Lubotsky, D. and Paxson, C. (2002) Economic status and health in childhood: the origins of the gradient. American Economic Review 92(5), 1308–1334.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
CDC. (2018) Recommended BMI-for-age Cutoffs. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpao/growthcharts/training/bmiage/.Google Scholar
Connolly, M. (2008) Here comes the rain again: weather and the intertemporal substitution of leisure. Journal of Labor Economics 26(1), 73–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cornwell, K. and Inder, B. (2015) Child health and rainfall in early life. Journal of Development Studies 51(7), 865–880.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Currie, J. (2009) Healthy, wealthy, and wise: socioeconomic status, poor health in childhood, and human capital development. Journal of Economic Literature 47(1), 87–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Currie, A., Shields, M. A. and Wheatley Price, S. (2007) The child health/family income gradient: evidence from England. Journal of Health Economics 26(2), 213–232.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Currie, J. and Stabile, M. (2002) Socioeconomic Status and Health: Why Is the Relationship Stronger for Older Children? NBER Working Paper.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deschênes, O. and Greenstone, M. (2007) The economic impacts of climate change: evidence from agricultural output and random fluctuations in weather. American Economic Review 97(1), 354–385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doyle, O., Harmon, C. and Walker, I. (2007) The impact of parental income and education on child health: Further evidence for England. University College Dublin. Geary Institute. Working Paper No. 6 ⁄ 2007.Google Scholar
Duryea, S., Lam, D. and Levison, D. (2007) Effects of economic shocks on children's employment and schooling in Brazil. Journal of Development Economics 84(1), 188–214.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fay, M., Leipziger, D., Wodon, Q. and Yepes, T. (2005) Achieving child-health-related Millennium Development Goals: the role of infrastructure. World Development 33(8), 1267–1284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fichera, E. and Savage, D. (2015) Income and health in Tanzania. An instrumental variable approach. World Development 66, 500–515.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Filmer, D. (2005) Fever and its treatment among the more and less poor in sub-Saharan Africa. Health Policy and Planning 20(6), 337–346.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Filmer, D. and Scott, K. (2012) Assessing asset indices. Demography 49(1), 359–392.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ghuman, S., Behrman, J. R., Borja, J. B., Gultiano, S. and King, E. M. (2005) Family background, service providers, and early childhood development in the Philippines: proxies and interactions. Economic Development and Cultural Change 54(1), 129–164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gröger, A. and Zylberberg, Y. (2016) Internal labor migration as a shock coping strategy: evidence from a typhoon. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 8(2), 123–153.Google Scholar
Gwatkin, D. R., Rutstein, S., Johnson, K., Suliman, E., Wagstaff, A. and Amouzou, A. (2007). Socio-Economic Differences in Health, Nutrition, and Population Within Developing Countries. Washington, DC: World Bank, 287.Google ScholarPubMed
Hoddinott, J. and Kinsey, B. (2001) Child growth in the time of drought. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 63(4), 409–436.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howe, L. D., Hargreaves, J. R., Gabrysch, S. and Huttly, S. R. (2009) Is the wealth index a proxy for consumption expenditure? A systematic review. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 63(11), 871–877.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Humphries, D. L., Dearden, K. A., Crookston, B. T., Woldehanna, T., Penny, M. E. and Behrman, J. R. (2017) Household food group expenditure patterns are associated with child anthropometry at ages 5, 8 and 12 years in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam. Economics & Human Biology 26, 30–41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jacoby, H. G. and Skoufias, E. (1997) Risk, financial markets, and human capital in a developing country. The Review of Economic Studies 64(3), 311–335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jensen, R. (2000) Agricultural volatility and investments in children. American Economic Review 90(2), 399–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Khanam, R., Nghiem, H. S. and Connelly, L. B. (2009) Child health and the income gradient: evidence from Australia. Journal of Health Economics 28(4), 805–817.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Knodel, J. and Wongsith, M. (1991) Family size and children's education in Thailand: evidence from a national sample. Demography 28(1), 119–131.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Krishna, A., Fink, G., Berkman, L. F. and Subramanian, S. V. (2016) Short-and long-run associations between birth weight and children's height. Economics & Human Biology 21, 156–166.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kuehnle, D. (2014) The causal effect of family income on child health in the UK. Journal of Health Economics 36, 137–150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lohmann, S. and Lechtenfeld, T. (2015) The effect of drought on health outcomes and health expenditures in rural Vietnam. World Development 72, 432–448.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
López Boo, F. (2016) Socio-economic status and early childhood cognitive skills: a mediation analysis using the Young Lives panel. International Journal of Behavioral Development 40(6), 500–508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maccini, S. and Yang, D. (2009) Under the weather: health, schooling, and economic consequences of early-life rainfall. American Economic Review 99(3), 1006–1026.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mendelsohn, R., Nordhaus, W. D. and Shaw, D. (1994) The impact of global warming on agriculture: a Ricardian analysis. American Economic Review 84, 753–771.Google Scholar
Miller, G. and Urdinola, B. P. (2010) Cyclicality, mortality, and the value of time: the case of coffee price fluctuations and child survival in Colombia. Journal of Political Economy 118(1), 113–155.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Montgomery, M. R., Gragnolati, M., Burke, K. A. and Paredes, E. (2000) Measuring living standards with proxy variables. Demography 37(2), 155–174.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mulmi, P., Block, S. A., Shively, G. E. and Masters, W. A. (2016) Climatic conditions and child height: sex-specific vulnerability and the protective effects of sanitation and food markets in Nepal. Economics & Human Biology 23, 63–75.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Newhouse, D. (2005) The persistence of income shocks: evidence from rural Indonesia. Review of Development Economics 9(3), 415–433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nguyen, C. (2016) The impact of health insurance programs for children: evidence from Vietnam. Health Economics Review 6(1), 34.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Outes-Leon, I. and Dercon, S. (2008) Survey Attrition and Attrition Bias in Young Lives, Technical Note 5, Oxford: Young Lives.Google Scholar
Paxson, C. and Schady, N. (2007) Cognitive development among young children in Ecuador the roles of wealth, health, and parenting. Journal of Human Resources 42(1), 49–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perry, B. (2002) The mismatch between income measures and direct outcome measures of poverty. Social Policy Journal of New Zealand 19, 101–127.Google Scholar
Rogers, J. M. and Gray, M. B. (1994) CE Data: quintiles of income versus quintiles of outlays. Monthly Labor Review 117, 32.Google Scholar
Roodman, D. (2011) Fitting fully observed recursive mixed-process models with cmp. The Stata Journal 11(2), 159–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rubio-Codina, M., Attanasio, O., Meghir, C., Varela, N. and Grantham-McGregor, S. (2015) The socioeconomic gradient of child development: cross-sectional evidence from children 6–42 months in Bogota. Journal of Human Resources 50(2), 464–483.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rutstein, S. O. and Johnson, K. (2004) The DHS Wealth Index. ORC Macro Calverton, Maryland.Google Scholar
Sabelhaus, J. and Groen, J. A. (2000) Can permanent-income theory explain cross-sectional consumption patterns? Review of Economics and Statistics 82(3), 431–438.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sastry, N. (2004) Trends in socioeconomic inequalities in mortality in developing countries: the case of child survival in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Demography 41(3), 443–464.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sim, A., Suryadarma, D. and Suryahadi, A. (2017) The consequences of child market work on the growth of human capital. World Development 91, 144–155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stock, J. H. and Yogo, M. (2002) Testing for Weak Instruments in Linear IV Regression. Cambridge, Mass., USA: National Bureau of Economic Research.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stoklosa, M., Shuval, K., Drope, J., Tchernis, R., Pachucki, M., Yaroch, A. and Harding, M. (2018) The intergenerational transmission of obesity: the role of time preferences and self-control. Economics & Human Biology 28, 92–106.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thai, T. Q. and Falaris, E. M. (2014) Child schooling, child health, and rainfall shocks: evidence from rural Vietnam. Journal of Development Studies 50(7), 1025–1037.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Townsend, R. M. (1995) Consumption insurance: an evaluation of risk-bearing systems in low-income economies. Journal of Economic Perspectives 9(3), 83–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trinh, T. A. (2018) The impact of climate change on agriculture: findings from households in Vietnam. Environmental and Resource Economics 71(4), 897–921.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trinh, T. A. (2020) Mental health impacts of child labour: evidence from Vietnam and India. Journal of Development Studies, 1–15. DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2020.1746280.Google Scholar
Wehby, G. L. and McCarthy, A. M. (2013) Economic gradients in early child neurodevelopment: a multi-country study. Social Science and Medicine 78, 86–95.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
WHO Expert Consultation (2004) Appropriate body-mass index for Asian populations and its implications for policy and intervention strategies. The Lancet 363, 157–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Health Organization. (2010) Nutrition Landscapr Information System (NLIS) country profile indicators: interpretation guide. Nutr Landsc Inf Syst NLIS Geneva WHO.Google Scholar