NOVAFRICA Seminar:
“Child Height and Intergenerational Transmission of Health: Evidence from Ethnic Indians in England”

On Monday, October 10th, at 2.30pm, the NOVAFRICA Center welcomes Alessandro Tarozzi from Universitat Pompeu Fabra to present his work.

Authors:
Alessandro Tarozzi (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)

Abstract:
A large literature documents a widespread prevalence of small stature among Indian children
as well as adults. We show that a height gap relative to a richer population such as whites in
England also exists, although substantially reduced, among adult immigrants of Indian ethnicity
in England. This is despite positive height selection into migration, demonstrated by ethnic
Indian adults in England being on average 6-7 centimeters taller than in India. However, the
difference between natives and ethnic Indians in England disappears among their younger sons
and daughters, although it re-appears among adolescents. We estimate that, conditional on age,
gender and parental height, ethnic Indian children of age 2 to 4 in England are 6 to 8% taller
than in India. Such degree of catch up in one generation is remarkable, also because in England
children of ethnic Indians have much smaller birth-weight than whites, by about 0.4 kilograms
on average.

See the paper here.

Please find further information about this seminar here.