The Dynamic Effects of Family Income on
Child Health in the United States
March 2009
Abstract
Recent studies on the relationship between family income and child health show that children from poorer families have worse health than those from wealthier families, and that the negative effects of low income on health accumulate during childhood. In this paper, we aim to disaggregate the accumulated effects of income on child health found in the past studies into the “marginal” (i.e., contemporaneous) effects and investigate how the contemporaneous effects evolve as children become older. Using data from the two waves of the Child Development Supplement (CDS) of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), we found weak evidence that the contemporaneous effects of family income on child health seem to accumulate with a decreasing rate throughout childhood.
