Diverging Destinies: Continuity and Change in the Geographic Distribution of Age-Race-Birth Weight Patterns from 1991-2017

• In Event: 4146 - Fertility

Abstract

Research has shown that the relationship between maternal age the risk of a low birth weight (LBW) birth (<2500 grams) differs dramatically between Black and white mothers. These studies, using data the early 1990's, found that white women's risk of LBW followed a U-curve, declining from the teen years and decreasing or holding steady through the 20's before increasing slightly after age 30. By contrast, Black women's LBW risk rose monotonically with age. Using restricted birth certificate data, I show that the United States as a whole approximated these patterns in 1991-94, but no longer did by 2014-17. In this more recent period, rates of LBW for Blacks continue to be much higher than for whites, but the disparity no longer increases with age. I disaggregate the national findings by state or by county-level poverty status and find that low-poverty counties and states in the Northeast, West, and Midwest exhibited large changes in their age-race LBW patterns. By contrast, racial disparities in LBW changed much less in high-poverty counties, and actually widened in many Southern states, particularly those that have experienced minimal income growth in recent decades. These results highlight the continued importance of reexamining older findings using population-level data over time.

Author

• Nicholas Mark, NYU