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  5. The Broad Decline in Health and Human Capital of Americans Born after 1947

American Economic Review: Insights

ISSN 2640-205X (Print) | ISSN 2640-2068 (Online)

The Broad Decline in Health and Human Capital of Americans Born after 1947

  • Nicholas Reynolds
American Economic Review: Insights (Forthcoming)

Abstract

I present evidence of a cross-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’ birthweight), 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: i) educational declines in the 1960s, ii) increases in low birthweight in the 1980s, iii) mortality increases since 1999, and to contribute substantially to iv) wage stagnation since the 1970s.

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