An Analysis of Sibling Correlations in Health using Latent Variable Models

Recent Posts

Unclaimed: Over $15 million in Tax Credits for Low Income Households

April 29, 2024 No Comments

Wealth by Association? How Social Networks Drive Inequality in Hawaii

April 25, 2024 1 Comment

How does Hawai‘i’s economic geography affect its healthcare industry?

April 22, 2024 No Comments

Taxing Tourists to Generate Revenue to Address the Negative Impacts of Climate Change on Hawai‘i Natural Resources

April 5, 2024 2 Comments

Threshold regressions for more objective urban and regional policies

April 4, 2024 No Comments

We investigate sibling correlations in youth health status using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. We do so by estimating the covariance structure of a system of equations in latent variables using methods that have hitherto not been used in the literature on intergenerational transmissions of health. Across a battery of outcomes, we find that between 50 and 60% of health status can be attributed to shared familial or neighborhood characteristics. Taking the principal component across all outcomes, we obtain a sibling correlation of about 53%. These estimates, which are larger than previous estimates of sibling correlations in health that rely on linear models, are more in-line with sibling correlations in income and suggest that health status, like other measures of socioeconomic success, is strongly influenced by family background.

Research Paper

Leave a Comment
Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Name*

Last Name*

Email*

Website

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.

The University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization (UHERO) welcomes online comments to stories that are posted on our website or social media pages. Comments are intended to be a forum for open, respectful, and family-friendly discussion. UHERO reserves the right to remove anything posted on our website or social media pages that is deemed inappropriate. All comments are moderated and will therefore have a delayed post time.
Some guidelines (not an exhaustive list) we use when moderating/approving comments include:

Do not bully, intimidate, or harass any user.
Do not post content that is hateful, threatening or wildly off-topic; or do anything unlawful, malicious, discriminatory or defamatory.
Observe confidentiality laws at all times.
Do not post spam or advertisements.
Observe fair use, copyright and disclosure laws.
Do not use vulgar language or profanity.

UHERO may amend this policy from time to time.