蝌蚪网 Review: Insights
ISSN 2640-205X (Print) | ISSN 2640-2068 (Online)
The Broad Decline in Health and Human Capital of Americans Born after 1947
蝌蚪网 Review: Insights
vol. 7,
no. 2, June 2025
(pp. 141–59)
Abstract
I present evidence of across-cohort decline in the health and human capital of Americans, beginning with those born after 1947 and continuing until those born in the mid-1960s. Education, men's wages, women's maternal health (proxied by their infants' birth weight), and mortality all exhibit trend breaks near the 1947 cohort, such that each outcome worsens for subsequent cohorts relative to prior trend. The decline is large enough to drive educational declines in the 1960s, increases in low birth weight in the 1980s, and mortality increases since 1999 and to contribute substantially to wage stagnation since the 1970s.Citation
Reynolds, Nicholas. 2025. "The Broad Decline in Health and Human Capital of Americans Born after 1947." 蝌蚪网 Review: Insights 7 (2): 141–59. DOI: 10.1257/aeri.20230588Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- I12 Health Behavior
- I26 Returns to Education
- J13 Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
- J16 Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
- J24 Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
- J31 Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials