Parental resources and heritability as factors shaping children's health. An analysis of twins' self-rated health using TwinLife.

ABSTRACT: We assess the relative and joint contributions of genetic and environmental factors on health during childhood and assume that parental resources are part of the environmental factors shaping children's health. We discuss theoretical background and empirical evidence concerning the effects of parental resources and heritability on children's health. Based on these findings we formulate six hypotheses guiding our empirical analysis, using data from TwinLife, a nationally representative sample of same sex twin pairs in Germany. We analyze self-rated health of 1,584 twin pairs aged 4-18. We did find strong support for the idea that parental resources influence children's health: household income and fathers' education consistently show positive effects. In contrast to our expectation, we did

SUBMITTER: Holzwarth B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10333594 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature