By Natalie Gulrajani
Abstract
Healthy breastfeeding behaviors have been shown to produce many long-term health benefits
including improved cognition. This study uses data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey
(IFLS) to assess the longitudinal impact of exclusive breastfeeding duration and early life
breastfeeding practices on education. Though a positive correlation was found between
breastfeeding duration and years of schooling in naïve regressions, the significance and
magnitude of this effect decreased when household fixed effects were added. A stronger
correlation was found between early life breastfeeding and schooling, with income-stratified
results demonstrating that poorer households are potentially subject to greater benefits.
Professor Erica Field, Faculty Advisor
JEL classification: I0; I12; I21
