Abstract

We use data from the Ontario Child Health Study to assess how the empirical association between child health and both low-income and family status (lone-mother versus two-parent) changes when we move from a single cross-section to two waves of data. Our measures of health status include categorical indicators and the health utility score derived from the Health Utilities Index Mark 2 (HUI2) system. Consistent with the permanent income hypothesis, we find that most outcomes are more strongly related to low-average income (in 1982 and 1986) than to low-current income in either year. Lone-mother status is also negatively associated with most outcomes, but the lone mother-coefficients did not change significantly when we switched from low-current income to low-average income. This implies that the lone-mother coefficient in single cross-sections is not just a proxy for low permanent income.

Download (132 Kb)