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"The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this. You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email. We consider the effects of daytime fasting by pregnant women during the lunar month of Ramadan on their children's test scores at age seven. Using English register data, we find that scores are .05 to .08 standard deviations lower for Pakistani and Bangladeshi students exposed to Ramadan in early pregnancy. These estimates are downward biased to the extent that Ramadan is not universally observed. We conclude that the effects of prenatal investments on test scores are comparable to many conventional educational interventions but are likely to be more cost effective and less subject to "fade out""--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

"The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this. You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email. This paper examines the links between the disease environment around the time of a woman's birth, and her health at the time she delivers her own infant. Our results suggest that exposure to disease in early childhood significantly increases the incidence of diabetes in the population of future mothers. The exposed mothers are less likely to be married, have fewer years of education, are more likely to gain over 60 pounds while pregnant, and are more likely to smoke while pregnant. Not surprisingly then, exposure increases the probability of low birth weight in the next generation, at least among whites. Among whites, this effect remains when we control for maternal behaviors as well as disease exposure. Among blacks, we find that maternal exposure reduces the incidence of low birth weight. The difference between whites and blacks may reflect a "scarring" vs. selection story; whites who go on to have children are negatively impacted, while blacks who go on to have children are positively selected having survived a higher early childhood mortality rate"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

Preference for sons over daughters, evident in China's and South Asia's male sex ratios, is commonly rationalized by poverty and the need for old‐age support. In this article we study South and East Asian immigrants to Canada, a group for whom the economic imperative to select sons is largely absent. Analyzing the 2001 and 2006 censuses, 20 percent samples, we find clear evidence of extensive sex selection in favor of boys at higher parities among South and East Asian immigrants unless they are Christian or Muslim. The latter finding accords with the explicit prohibition against (female) infanticide—traditionally the main sex‐selection method—in these religions. Our findings point to a strong cultural component to both the preference for sons and the willingness to resort to induced abortion based on sex.