Investigations Research: At low baby birth weight, a link to placement as an adult

Human the health status of early childhood is linked to investment in adulthood, it is clear behavioral economics research.

According to the study, the birth weight of a baby is related to how likely a person is to participate in the stock market as an adult.

Low birth weight is a rough measure of a baby’s overall health. Poor health in early childhood, on the other hand, probably means poorer health later in life.

According to the study, a sicker person takes less risk in their finances and does not participate in high-risk activities as likely as a person in good health.

Research investigator Petri Böckerman considers the result natural. Böckerman is a Laborer (former Wage Research Institute) and Professor of Health Economics at the University of Jyväskylä School of Economics.

“A person in poor health may not plan as far into the future as others. If the planning horizon is short, a person may not want to participate in a stock market where results require long-term results. ”

The laboratory’s study compares the birth weight of 5,000 people born in 1966 with their participation in the stock market as adults between 1995 and 2010.

Birth weights have been collected from the Northern Finland Birth Cohort, which has followed people born in the Oulu region in 1966 throughout their lives. Information on the securities holdings of the properties has been obtained from the Securities Register.

Böckerman according to the study brings one new possible reason why people do not participate in the stock market.

“Health status is a new element, of which there are only a few studies internationally.”

According to Böckerman, the research result is more broadly related to the accumulation of wealth in society.

“It is worrying that poor health will affect the growth of assets in the long run.”

It is clear that poor health also affects people’s employment. Healthy people are more likely to be in employment and thus earn better.

The state of health is thus reflected in a person’s financial position through wages and long-term savings throughout a person’s life cycle.

Of course it is possible that the underweight of the baby is due at least in part to the socioeconomic status of the parents.

However, Böckerman’s study also examined the educational levels of the mothers of the subjects in the year of birth of the babies, and no similarities were found between the educational level and the birth weight.

“However, that doesn’t rule out that this could be one potential explanation.”

Böckerman thinks that the mother’s level of education affects the child’s weight less in a society like Finland than in the United States, for example, because Finland has an all-inclusive health care system.

The fact that the mother’s level of education did not correlate with the child’s birth weight is positive news, according to Böckerman.

“A socially desirable outcome.”