Genes and the intergenerational transmission of BMI and obesity.

This paper compares the strength of intergenerational transmission of body mass index (BMI) and obesity in a sample of adoptees relative to a matched sample of biological children with similar observable characteristics. We find that BMI and obesity are strongly correlated among biological parent-child pairs, but there are no significant intergenerational associations in these health traits among adoptive parent-child pairs. The intergenerational elasticity of BMI for children to their parents is 0.2 in the matched biological sample, but indistinguishable from zero for adopted children with a standard error more than three times as large as the coefficient. Under reasonable assumptions, these findings indicate that the intergenerational transmission of BMI and obesity occurs primarily through genetic mechanisms. Additional analyses of transmission rates by parental gender and among step-parents and step-children support this conclusion. The role of determinants of BMI and obesity in the household environment in relation to our findings is discussed. Given the negative consequences of obesity on earnings and other economic measures, our results suggest that the genetic transmission of weight problems contributes substantially to intergenerational persistence in economic outcomes.

The effect of job loss and unemployment duration on suicide risk in the United States: a new look using mass-layoffs and unemployment duration.

We examine the link between employment status and suicide risk using a panel of US states from 1996 to 2005 with monthly data on suicides, the duration of unemployment spells and the number of job losses associated with mass-layoff events. The use of aggregate data at the monthly level along with the distribution of unemployment duration allows us to separate the effect of job loss from the effect of unemployment duration, an important distinction for policy purposes, especially for the timing of potential interventions. Our results are consistent with unemployment duration being the dominant force in the relationship between job loss and suicide. Nevertheless, mass-layoffs may be powerful localized events where suicide risk increases shortly afterward. Implications for the design of unemployment insurance are discussed.

The politics of hope and despair: the effect of presidential election outcomes on suicide rates.

OBJECTIVES: This article examines the effect of election outcomes on suicide rates by combining the theory of social integration developed by Durkheim with the models of rational choice used in economics. METHODS: Theory predicts that states with a greater percentage of residents who supported the losing candidate would tend to exhibit a relative increase in suicide rates. However, being around others who also supported the losing candidate may indicate a greater degree of social integration at the local level, thereby lowering relative suicide rates. We therefore use fixed-effects regression of state suicide rates from 1981 to 2005 on state election outcomes during presidential elections to determine which effect is stronger. RESULTS: We find that the local effect of social integration is dominant. The suicide rate when a state supports the losing candidate will tend to be lower than if the state had supported the winning candidate-4.6 percent lower for males and 5.3 percent lower for females. CONCLUSION: Social integration works at many levels; it not only affects suicide risk directly, but can mediate other shocks that influence suicide risk.

Measures of the intergenerational transmission of body mass index between mothers and their children in the United States, 1981-2004.

This research provides estimates of the intergenerational persistence of body mass index (BMI) between women and their children when both are at similar stages of the lifecycle. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and the Young Adults of the NLSY79, associations between the weight status of women and their children are measured when both generations are between the ages of 16 and 24. In the entire sample, the measured intergenerational correlation of BMI is significantly different from zero and equal to 0.35. This result differs by gender with a BMI correlation between female children and their mothers of 0.38, compared to a significantly lower BMI correlation of 0.32 between mothers and their sons. Measures of this relationship across the distribution of BMI using quantile regression and quadrant dependence techniques indicate that the intergenerational persistence of BMI is strongest at higher levels of BMI. Strong dependence across generations is found when categorical outcomes of obesity and overweight are implemented. These results provide evidence of the strong persistence of weight problems across generations which may affect economic mobility within families.