Season of Birth and Later Outcomes: Old Questions, New Answers
Season of birth is associated with later outcomes; what drives this association remains unclear. We consider a new explanation: variation in maternal characteristics. We document large changes in maternal characteristics for births throughout the year; winter births are disproportionally realized by teenagers and the unmarried. Family background controls explain nearly half of season-of-birth's relation to adult outcomes. Seasonality in maternal characteristics is driven by women trying to conceive; we find no seasonality among unwanted births. Prior seasonality-in-fertility research focuses on conditions at conception; here expected conditions at birth drive variation in maternal characteristics while conditions at conception are unimportant.
- DOI
- 10.1162/rest_a_00314
- Volume
- 95 (3)
- Pages
- 711-724
- Language
- en
- Export
- BibTeX
- Sources
- crossref openalex