Cover: Height, Education and Later-Life Cognition in Latin America and the Caribbean

Height, Education and Later-Life Cognition in Latin America and the Caribbean

Published In: Economics and Human Biology, v. 8, no. 2, July 2010, p. 168-176

Posted on RAND.org on January 01, 2010

by Jürgen Maurer

Building on previous evidence from the U.S., this study investigates the relationship between anthropometric markers (height and knee height), early-life conditions, education, and cognitive function in later life among urban elderly from Latin America and the Caribbean. I document a positive association between height and later-life cognitive function, which is larger for women than for men. This sex difference increases when I address potential feedback effects from mid- and later-life circumstances on stature by using knee height as an instrument for height. Specifically, while the estimates for women remain largely unchanged, I only find a diminished and statistically insignificant association between instrumented height and later-life cognition for men. This finding suggests that at least part of the association between height and later-life cognition among men may stem from common third factors that are correlated with both height and later-life cognition, such as adverse occupational exposures or health events during mid- and later life. Extended models that also include education further diminish the association between height and later-life cognition. Education displays strong positive gradients with the employed measures of childhood circumstances-including height-which points to education as a potential pathway linking early-life conditions and later-life cognitive function.

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