The sunshine a mother gets while pregnant may follow her child into the job market. In China, people whose mothers were exposed to more sunlight during the second trimester went on to earn significantly more as adults.
The study is by Guanghua Wan of Fudan University and Nankai University, Tongjin Zhang of Tianjin University of Commerce and Xiaoshan Hu of Shanghai Dianji University. It was published online in Health Economics on September 24, 2024, and appeared in the journal’s January 2025 issue.
Survey answers meet weather records
The authors note that economists had not estimated the income effects of sunlight exposure during pregnancy before. To do so, they combined adult income data from the China General Social Survey with historical records from the China National Meteorological Data Service Center, linking each person to the sunlight around the time they were in the womb.
Sunlight during the second trimester had a significantly positive effect on later income. The effect differed by birth month and was larger for women, older employees, people born in rural areas, those born before China’s economic reforms and those whose mothers had less education.
Healthier and more active as adults
To understand why, the researchers looked at health. People with more second-trimester sunlight exposure were healthier and exercised more in adulthood, which points to a human capital pathway running from the womb to the paycheck.
The authors suggest that families, communities and policymakers should pay attention to sunlight during pregnancy, especially for less-educated and rural women in the developing world, the groups where the payoff appeared largest.
Study Details:
- Title: Income effect of prenatal sunlight exposure: Empirical evidence from China
- Authors: Guanghua Wan, Tongjin Zhang, Xiaoshan Hu
- Journal: Health Economics, Vol. 34, No. 1, pages 45-67
- Publication Date: September 24, 2024 (online); January 2025 issue
- DOI: 10.1002/hec.4892