The Relationship Between Health and Cognitive as well as

Noncognitive Skills in Children

Daniel SchunkUniversity of Zurich, Switzerland

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Motivation

• Developmental gaps in cognitive and noncognitive skills • open up early in life, and • are a source of severe socioeconomic inequalities in adulthood

• Research question:What is the role of child health in the formation of these gaps?

(1) Salm/Schunk (JEEA): Cognitive and verbal skills

(2) Bartling/Fehr/Schunk (in progress): Noncognitive skills

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Salm/Schunk: Data

• Confidential administrative data from medical school entrance examinations in Osnabrück/Germany• Compulsory for every child at the age of 6 years• Administered by government pediatricians• Siblings can be identified

• Unfortunately, children cannot be followed over time, no further data collection.

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Salm and Schunk: Estimation

• Outcome variable: (1) CPM-score, (2) Verbal ability• Independent variables:

• Ear condition• Eye condition• Weight• Size• Asthma• Allergies• Birth weight, pH-value of umbilical cord

• Hyperactivity, peer problems, conduct problems

• Family socioeconomic characteristics, birth order, kindergarden attendance, #siblings etc…

• Estimation of sibling fixed effect models

Chronic health conditions

Mental health/personality

Sociodemographics

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Salm/Schunk: Key Results

1. Physical health conditions are not associated with lower cognitive skills, very mild negative association for some conditions.

2. Mental health conditions (physician-rated or parent-rated) are negatively associated with cognitive skills.• Closer look: Mostly driven by hyperactivity

3. Decomposition analysis:

Mental health conditions account for • 14%-36% of the gap in CPM • 23%-24% of the gap in verbal ability

• Possible interpretation: Parents of lower SES are less able to compensate for the negative effects of mental health problems on cognitive and verbal ability

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Bartling/Fehr/Schunk: Idea

• A person‘s willingness to compete is • correlated with personality characteristics (e.g. Big 5,

Bartling et al., 2009)• a noncognitive skill which is an important determinant of

human capital (e.g. Sutter/Rützler, 2010)

• Is health associated with a child‘s willingness to compete?

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Bartling/Fehr/Schunk: Data

• From a special module of the German Socioeconomic Panel (GSOEP)

• Willingness to compete is measured using an incentivized real effort experiment• Children choose whether their payoff is determined by a

tournament or a piece-rate payment scheme.

• Detailed information on the child‘s socioeconomic background, parental behavior and on chronic child health conditions (self-reported by the parents) is available

• Unfortunately no sibling data yet.

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Bartling/Fehr/Schunk: Key results

1. Health conditions are negatively associated with a child‘s willingness to compete.

2. The negative association is strong for parents of low SES, but does not appear for parents of high SES.

• Possible interpretation: Parents of lower SES are less able to compensate for the negative effects of health problems on their children‘s willingness to compete

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Summary

• Accumulating evidence that 1. (certain) chronic health conditions and cognitive as well

as noncognitive skills are negatively associated

2. parents of lower SES are less able to compensate for health impairments of their children than parents of higher SES

• More reliable evidence that can be used for policy needs panel data on the development of health, skills, and personality at young age.