This paper explores the intergenerational effects of parental health shocks using longitudinal data from the Young Lives project conducted in Andhra Pradesh, India. It is found that health shocks to poorer parents reduce investments in children thereby reducing their future earnings, and perpetuating poverty and inequality. The paper discusses important dimensions like the timing of health shocks and pathways through which they affect human capital investment, differential effects of paternal and maternal shocks on different cohort groups, roles of cognitive abilities of children and quality of schooling in human capital accumulation.

Paper written by Sowmya Dhanaraj (PhD candidate at IGIDR, Mumbai), using Young Lives data from teh UK Public Data Archive

Keywords: parental health shocks, school