# Household income at birth and preschool child health

> **NIH NIH R03** · UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA · 2020 · $75,500

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY:
Evidence on significant associations between income and child health is accumulating. But relatively little is known about
effectiveness of income transfer policies around birth in improving child health, especially in low- and middle-income
countries (LMICs). About 250 million children under 5y of age in LMICs are at risk of failing to reach their full
developmental potential, and 138 million children are projected to be stunted in 2020.This project will contribute unique
knowledge about impacts of minimum wages (MWs) around the time of birth on preschool child nutritional status in
Indonesia up to 5y after birth. Indonesia carries the fifth highest burden of stunted children in the world, and MWs are an
integral part of the Indonesian social policy debate. To identify causal effects, the basic model exploits timing of births
relative to timing of changes in MWs: some children happen to be born in years with higher MWs whereas others are born
in years with lower MWs. Comparisons among siblings born from the same biological mothers help address concerns
about the potential role of unobserved factors leading some mothers to time births relative to changes in MWs. This basic
strategy is strengthened with a difference-in-differences (DiD) framework that compares cohort differences among
biological siblings across provinces with higher versus lower MWs. Data are used on child (ages 0-5) anthropometrics and
on health, health investments, employment and socio-economic status from all 5 waves of the Indonesian Family Life
Survey (IFLS), a nationally representative longitudinal dataset spanning over 21 years- 1993 (7,224 households) to 2014
(15,761 households). A panel of policy data, from the Indonesian Bureau of Statistics, will be constructed for province-
specific MWs that covers 26y (1988-2014) and will be merged with the IFLS. The larger time coverage of MW data
ensures that MWs can be matched for each child 0-5y in each relevant wave of the IFLS. Specific Aims are: (SA1) To use
quasi-experimental methods (DiD and biological sibling fixed effects) to estimate the causal effects of MWs at birth on
child height-for-age (stunting) and weight-for-height (wasting) z scores up to 5y after birth and whether the effects at birth
year are different from effects up to 2y before and 2y after birth to shed light on critical periods in child growth for policy
interventions. (SA2) To investigate whether effects of MWs on child health vary (interact) by child sex, baseline parental
characteristics (e.g. education and occupation), communal characteristics (urbanization, past stunting/wasting rates,
province GDP/capita and past province unemployment). (SA3) To investigate mechanisms/pathways by studying effects
of MWs on parental health investments in children before, during and after birth, for those expected to benefit and as well
as for those who may potentially suffer any unintended harms (e.g. unemployment) from MW increases. This proposal is
...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9884797
- **Project number:** 5R03HD097425-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA
- **Principal Investigator:** Muhammad Farhan Majid
- **Activity code:** R03 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $75,500
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-11-23 → 2020-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9884797

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9884797, Household income at birth and preschool child health (5R03HD097425-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9884797. Licensed CC0.

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