Comments on: Missing Link Daily

By: Helen

Helen — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 01:18:33 +0000

Don’t tell me this needs to be explained to them all over again.

By: Laura

Laura — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 06:19:27 +0000

Yes, exactly - the only birth that can be delayed is a pre-term elective caesarian, and while Andrew Leigh is welcome to argue as much as he likes against the baby bonus on financial grounds the onus is on him to prove, rather than claim, that shifting or postponing a pre-term delivery has bad health outcomes - he says it makes heavier babies and fatter children.

By: Liam (Bring Back Punster Paxton)

Liam (Bring Back Punster Paxton) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 06:12:31 +0000

Ah but just think, NPOV, were your child to wind up working in some kind of finance or accounting-related industry which had huge end-of-financial-year parties, what great celebrations s/he would accrue!
Beats a measly bonus.

By: NPOV

NPOV — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 06:11:30 +0000

I’d also suggest, surely it should be the hospitals lobbying for more staged bonuses, given they’re the hardest hit by having to deal with that many extra births? The health effects are surely a drop in the ocean compared to those from women choosing to have babies far later in life than in the past.

By: Ken Parish

Ken Parish — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 06:10:00 +0000

According to this document, about 26.5% of mothers have an induced birth and 15% have an elective (as opposed to emergency) caesarean. That would seem to leave plenty of scope for only a minor proportion of these (around 10% of them) to manipulate the time of birth by a few hours.

By: NPOV

NPOV — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 06:08:32 +0000

Hey, if our child was born on 31 June, I’d want him to keep that unique distinction, thank you very much.

By: Liam (Bring Back Punster Paxton)

Liam (Bring Back Punster Paxton) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 05:45:48 +0000

Alternatively, might parents organise for their child a fraudulent birth certificate-signing if it was born in the late hours of 31 June? That’d solve everybody’s problems: the parents would get their bonus early, the child would get fewer hard-to-write digits in its birthdate, and the academics would get a tidy solution without risk to mother or child.

By: Ken Parish

Ken Parish — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 05:38:18 +0000

I guess if you were gong to have an induced or caesarean birth it might be possible safely to postpone that action for a few hours from when it would have occurred in more usual circumstances to bring it to 1 July. We’re only talking about around 5% of mothers giving birth on that day. Do we know what proportion of births on average occur by inducement or caesarean?

By: Laura

Laura — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 05:32:53 +0000

Ah, but how does one delay the birth of a baby who is determined to come out? Cross the legs? Or shift an already scheduled birth, ie one that was already being manipulated to fit with the hospital’s rosters?

The idea of large numbers of unhealthily large babies is also intriguing.

Anyway, tigtog and lauredhel have been on the case for ages with this, and my surprise is really just that their patient and layperson-friendly explanations to Leigh & Gans of the issues with their claims haven’t apparently sunk in with those economists.

By: Ken Parish

Ken Parish — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 05:11:51 +0000

Andrew Leigh and Joshua Gans have been going on about this phenomenon for some time, on their blogs and elsewhere so I assume they must be confident of its statistical significance. That said, it only seems to be positing that around 250-300 mothers Australia-wide delayed their birth until the next day. That doesn’t strike me as completely implausible.

By: Laura

Laura — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 05:05:41 +0000

nothing much to do with ML, but here’s as good a place as any to register my disbelief that the newspapers are still blithely running with this highly dubious story.