Early Childhood Nutrition, Schooling, and Sibling Inequality in a Dynamic Context: Evidence from South Africa

This article examines the effects of early childhood nutrition on schooling investments and outcomes to assess the dynamic nature of human capital production, using panel data from South Africa. Height‐for‐age Z‐score is used as a measure of health and nutritional status in early childhood. Based on a comparison of siblings, the empirical analysis shows that improving children’s health significantly lowers the age when they start school, increases grade attainment, decreases grade repetition, and improves learning performance in the early stage of schooling. However, the observed effect diminishes as a child ages, which implies that (i) height at ages earlier than three better explains subsequent schooling outcomes and/or (ii) the role of health capital changes from one schooling stage to another.