Adult earning potential is often modelled as a function of labour productivity and education attainment. Child health is very important. This is because of its impact on adult productivity and cognitive abilities. This is through the mechanisms above:
- Education: Healthier children less absenteeism, better concentration and learn more in school. The health of these children could have even been determined by their life in utero e.g an alcoholic mother can give birth to a child with long term brain damage; low birth weight babies were found to have poorer education outcomes.
- Productivity through nutrition: Poor childhood nutrition underlies up to 50% child morbidity especially in developing countries. This can hinder appropriate stature development which is necessary for adult income generation especially in economies based on manual labour like agriculture.
There has also been a lot of research to suggest that parents of better socio-economic status(with special reference to the mothers), have healthier children. This is because they have more money to invest in health and 'health' commodities such as nutritious food, safe toys etc. They also make better decisions regarding the health of their children.
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