The Health Effects of In Utero Exposure To Cash Transfers

Abstract

We study the effects of in utero exposure to a large cash transfer program on the health of children. Using data from South Africa, we use the age-eligibility threshold of the Older Person’s Grant and the variation in age differences between children and a coresident elderly to show that in utero exposure to the cash transfer led to a 0.26 SD increase in height-for-age of children. Among older children, we leverage the variation in the timing of the start of benefits to show important out-sized benefits of in utero exposure compared to starting later in early life. These results are robust to a variety of different checks including controlling for endogenous household formation. Given the importance of early child health in determining long-term outcomes, our results suggest that extending child-specific cash transfer programs to pregnant mothers can have long-term positive impacts.