Sporting Opportunities and Intergenerational Health Transmission: Measuring the Effect of Title IX on Generational Health Outcomes

• In Event: Causes and Consequences of Excess Body Weight

Abstract

This study examines the intergenerational transmission of health behaviors and outcomes using variation generated by Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Title IX banned gender discrimination in federally funded educational programs in the United States, dramatically expanding athletic opportunities for girls in U.S. schools and producing a substantial increase in female participation in organized sports. Previous research shows that these changes improved women's educational attainment and labor market outcomes, while more recent work suggests that increased sports participation also yielded important health benefits, including improved birth outcomes for the next generation. We build on this literature by asking whether the policy-driven expansion of sporting opportunities for adolescent girls produced health-behavior benefits that persist into the next generation. Specifically, we study whether women who had greater access to sports participation during high school later adopted healthier behaviors, and whether these advantages translated into improved physical activity levels, body weight outcomes, and other health outcomes for their children during adolescence and young adulthood. We implement an instrumental-variables strategy that leverages variation in exposure to Title IX across birth cohorts and geographic areas to identify causal effects. Our analysis draws on three complementary data sources: the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to link mothers' adolescent exposure to expanded sporting opportunities to the health behaviors and outcomes of their offspring, and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to examine mothers' own longer-run outcomes, including assortative mating patterns and the timing of childbearing decisions. Together, these data sets allow us to trace both the effects of adolescent sports access on women's life-course decisions and the effects operating through parental modeling, partner selection, and investments in children's human capital. By following these channels across generations, the study provides new evidence on how early-life opportunities can deliver long-run, multigenerational returns.

Author

• Rodrigo Aranda, Western Michigan University
  Presenting Author