Related papers: The long-run returns to breastfeeding
This study examines the impact of nighttime light intensity on child health outcomes in Bangladesh. We use nighttime light intensity as a proxy measure of urbanization and argue that the higher intensity of nighttime light, the higher is…
We consider how exchanges of support between parents and adult children vary by demographic and socio-economic characteristics and examine evidence for reciprocity in transfers and substitution between practical and financial support. Using…
Age and gender are two important factors that play crucial roles in the way organisms allocate their social effort. In this study, we analyse a large mobile phone dataset to explore the way lifehistory influences human sociality and the way…
Undernutrition, resulting in restricted growth, and quantified here using height-for-age z-scores, is an important contributor to childhood morbidity and mortality. Since all levels of mild, moderate and severe undernutrition are of…
This paper investigates the causal impact of the parental environment on the student's academic performance in mathematics, literature and English (as a foreign language), using a new database covering all children aged 8 to 15 of the…
Rapid increases in food supplies have reduced global hunger, while rising burdens of diet-related disease have made poor diet quality the leading cause of death and disability around the world. Today's "double burden" of undernourishment in…
The PROmotion of Breastfeeding Intervention Trial (PROBIT) cluster-randomized a program encouraging breastfeeding to new mothers in hospital centers. The original studies indicated that this intervention successfully increased duration of…
Cognition, a component of human capital, is fundamental for decision-making, and understanding the causes of human capital depreciation in old age is especially important in aging societies. Using various proxy measures of cognitive…
Many studies have analyzed how variability in reproductive success affects fitness. However, each study tends to focus on a particular problem, leaving unclear the overall structure of variability in populations. This fractured conceptual…
Ever since the studies of Louis-Adolphe Bertillon in the late 19th century it has been known that marital status and number of children markedly affect death and suicide rates. This led in 1898 Emile Durkheim to conjecture a connection…
An empirical relation indicates that an increase of living standard decreases the Total Fertility Rate (TFR), but this trend was broken in highly developed countries in 2005. The reversal of the TFR was associated with the continuous…
We estimate long-run effects of Cuba's 1961 National Health Service and contemporaneous National Literacy Campaign using synthetic-control methods on newly assembled series for 21 former European colonies in the Americas, 1900--2022.…
The analysis of the demographic transition of the past century and a half, using both empirical data and mathematical models, has rendered a wealth of well-established facts, including the dramatic increases in life expectancy. Despite…
We consider the effect of non-constant parameters on the human-forest interaction logistic model coupled with human technological growth introduced in "Deforestation and world population sustainability: a quantitative analysis"[1]. In…
The literature documents the effects of the pandemic on birthrate, birthweight, and pregnancy complications. This study contributes to this growing body of research by examining multiple facets of the phenomenon. Using the 2012-2022…
In many cohorts (such as the UK Biobank) on which Mendelian Randomization studies are routinely performed, data on participants' longevity is inadequate as the majority of participants are still living. To nevertheless estimate effects on…
The wealth of nations and the health of populations are intimately strongly associated, yet the extent to which economic prosperity (GDP per capita) causes improved health remains disputed. The purpose of this article is to analyze the…
Since steep declines in a population's size also typically alter its composition, population bottlenecks are considered highly important for evolution. However, despite such significance, the mechanisms governing the impact of a given…
The population size has far-reaching effects on the fitness of the population, that, in its turn influences the population extinction or persistence. Understanding the density- and age-dependent factors will facilitate more accurate…
The question as to why most higher organisms reproduce sexually has remained open despite extensive research, and has been called "the queen of problems in evolutionary biology". Theories dating back to Weismann have suggested that the key…