Generational Persistence in the Effects of an Early Childhood Health Intervention (joint with Sara Abrahamson, Aline Bütikofer and Marianne Page)

We investigate multi-generational impacts of an early life health intervention. Using Norwegian administrative data with variation in the timing of infant health care center adoption between 1936--1955, we find that the program's long term education and earnings benefits on exposed cohorts extended to their later offspring, but only for offspring who had an exposed mother. A plausible mechanism is supported by the finding that women exposed to the program were more likely to partner with highly educated and high earnings men that was also exposed to the reform. We also show that benefits accruing to the second generation are larger for those whose mothers were born in low income municipalities and municipalities that had high infant mortality rates, suggesting that public investments in early childhood health can be important levers towards increasing future generations' equality of opportunity.