Abstract

We study the long-term impact of a policy-driven change in childhood nutrition. For this purpose, we evaluate a program that rolled out nutritious school lunches free of charge to all pupils in Swedish primary schools between 1959 and 1969. We estimate the impact of the program on children's economic, educational and health outcomes throughout life. Our results show that the school lunch program generated substantial long-term benefits, where pupils exposed to the program during their entire primary school period have three percent higher lifetime income. The effect was greater for pupils that were exposed at earlier ages and for pupils from poor households, suggesting that the program reduced socioeconomic inequalities in adulthood. Exposure to the program also had substantial effects on educational attainment and health, which can explain a large part of the effect of the program on lifetime income.

中文翻译：

---

儿童营养的长期影响：学校午餐改革的证据

摘要

我们研究了由政策驱动的儿童营养变化的长期影响。为此，我们评估了一项计划，该计划在1959年至1969年之间免费向瑞典小学的所有学生免费提供营养学校午餐。我们估计该计划对儿童一生的经济，教育和健康成果的影响。我们的结果表明，学校午餐计划产生了可观的长期利益，在整个小学期间，参加该计划的学生的终身收入增加了3％。对于年龄较轻的学生和贫困家庭的学生而言，影响更大，这表明该计划减少了成年时期的社会经济不平等现象。参加该计划也对教育程度和健康产生了重大影响，