It's a Long Walk: Lasting Effects of Maternity Ward Openings on Labor Market Performance
中文摘要
在医院出生相对于在家中由传统助产士接生, 代表了全球范围内最常见的生命早期政策变化。本文对基于登记的全人口个体层面数据运用双重差分方法, 将新产房的开设作为一项生命早期的准实验, 考察其长期经济效应。研究首先发现, 该改革大幅提高了医院分娩的比例, 并降低了早期新生儿死亡率。随后表明, 该改革对劳动收入、失业、与健康相关的残疾以及受教育程度产生了可观的长期效应。小规模的地方产科病房所产生的社会回报率高于大规模医院。
Abstract
Abstract Being born in a hospital versus having a traditional birth attendant at home represents the most common early life policy change worldwide. By applying a difference-in-differences approach to register-based individual-level data on the total population, this paper explores the long-term economic effects of the opening of new maternity wards as an early life quasi-experiment. It first finds that the reform substantially increased the share of hospital births and reduced early neonatal mortality. It then shows sizable long-term effects on labor income, unemployment, health-related disability, and schooling. Small-scale local maternity wards yield a larger social rate of return than large-scale hospitals.