The intergenerational transmission of parent’s overweight differs by children’s sex and is statistically different for fathers & mothers; the effect is stronger among white children and children of older parents

Is the intergenerational transmission of overweight ‘gender assortative’? JoanCosta-Font, Mireia Jofre-Bonet. Economics & Human Biology, Volume 39, December 2020, 100907. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2020.100907

Highlights
• We study whether parents and children’s overweight (including obesity) is ‘gender assortative’.
• Gender assortative overweight is stronger among pre-school age and school-aged children.
• The parent-child associations are large and precisely estimated, and are heterogeneous by children’s age and sex.
• The parent-child associations are stronger among white children and children of older parents.

Abstract: Using almost two decades worth of data from the Health Survey for England, that contain representative records of clinically measured weight and height, this paper studies whether parents and children’s overweight (including obesity) is ‘gender assortative’. Our findings suggest that the intergenerational transmission of parent’s overweight differs by children’s sex and is statistically different for fathers and mothers. Gender assortative overweight is stronger among pre-school age and school-aged children. The parent-child associations are large and precisely estimated, heterogeneous by children’s age and sex and stronger among white children and children of older parents. These results suggest there is a gender assortative intergenerational association of overweight.

Keywords: Gender-assortative transmissionGender assortativeChild obesityChild overweightRole modelsInter-generational transmission