Lj. Curtis et al., The role of permanent income and family structure in the determination of child health in Canada, HEALTH ECON, 10(4), 2001, pp. 287-302
We use data from the Ontario Child Health Study (OCHS) to provide the first
Canadian estimates of how the empirical association between child health a
nd both low-income and family status (lone-mother versus two-parent) change
s when we re-estimate the model with pooled data. Two waves of data provide
a better indication of the family's long-run level of economic resources t
han does one wave. Our measures of health status include categorical indica
tors and the health utility score derived from the Health Utilities Index M
ark 2 (HU2) system. Consistent with findings from other countries, we find
that most outcomes are more strongly related to low-average income tin 1982
and 1986) than to low-current income in either year. Unlike some previous
research, we find the quantitative impact of low-income on child health to
be modest to large. Lone-mother status is negatively associated with most o
utcomes, but the lone-mother coefficients did not change significantly when
we switched from low-current income to low-average income. This implies th
at the lone-mother coefficient in single cross-sections is not just a proxy
for low-permanent income. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.