Do Older Mothers Deliver Smaller Babies? : A Korean Study from an Economic Perspective

Abstract

The incidence of low birth weight(LBW) has increased since the 1990s in Korea and is now at an alarming level. This trend makes health professionals and policy-makers concerned because it imposes large costs on society in the short and long term. However, this trend is not expected since most birth weight determinants have changed in favor of increasing it. Using birth registration data, this study finds that increasing maternal age adversely affects birth outcomes, especially increasing the incidence of LBW. Specifically, advanced maternal age has a negative effect on gestational weeks and then the birth outcomes aggravate. Additionally, this study investigates why maternal age has a negative effect on gestational weeks. This study provides plausible explanation that the increasing incidences of subfertility and gestational diabetes with age account for deceasing gestational weeks. Low birth weight babies can be burden to individual and society in that the average hospital cost of low birth weight babies amounted to about 15 million won in 2016 and government's expenditure on policy of fundholding for LBW exceeded 11 billion won in 2016. Therefore, policies and campaigns that deal with pre/during-pregnancy maternal health status need to be implemented.