Working Paper: NBER ID: w13879
Authors: Sherry Glied; Matthew Neidell
Abstract: Healthy teeth are a vital and visible component of general well-being, but there is little systematic evidence to demonstrate their economic value. In this paper, we examine one element of that value, the effect of oral health on labor market outcomes, by exploiting variation in access to fluoridated water during childhood. The politics surrounding the adoption of water fluoridation by local water districts suggests exposure to fluoride during childhood is exogenous to other factors affecting earnings. We find that women who resided in communities with fluoridated water during childhood earn approximately 4% more than women who did not, but we find no effect of fluoridation for men. Furthermore, the effect is almost exclusively concentrated amongst women from families of low socioeconomic status. We find little evidence to support occupational sorting, statistical discrimination, and productivity as potential channels of these effects, suggesting consumer and employer discrimination are the likely driving factors whereby oral health affects earnings
Keywords: oral health; labor market outcomes; water fluoridation; economic value of teeth
JEL Codes: I12; I18
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| exposure to fluoridated water during childhood (I12) | labor market outcomes (J48) |
| fluoridated water during childhood (Q25) | earnings for women from low SES families (J31) |
| fluoridated water during childhood (Q25) | earnings for children (J13) |
| oral health (I19) | earnings (J31) |
| consumer and employer discrimination (J71) | earnings for women from low SES families (J31) |