High quality nutrition in childhood, body size and wages in early adulthood: evidence from Guatemalan workers

Abstract

Establishing a causal relationship between health and productivity is not straightforward. On one hand, as income grows, people invest in better diets. On the other, a healthier worker is likely to be more productive. This paper focuses on the effect of body size, height and body mass index as indicators of nutrition, upon wages. Data comes from a longitudinal study conducted in Guatemala during 1969-77 and followed-up in 2002-04. Body size elasticity increases when unobserved heterogeneity is considered although evidence is stronger for males. Additionally, estimated elasticity shows some degree of heterogeneity at different quantiles of the conditional wage distribution.