Soft Skill Development in Children Born with Low Birthweight: How and Why Should Society Help?

Abstract

This paper brings together the existing literatures on low birthweight and soft skill development in order to demonstrate that interventions focused on soft skill development hold promise in improving the life outcomes of children born with low birthweight. First, I demonstrate that low birthweight is related to a wide range of negative life outcomes; I go on to show that interventions in soft skill development have been shown to improve many of these same outcomes. I develop a multi-tiered moral argument to support my claim that we have a societal responsibility to all children born with low birthweight. I close with a discussion of effective soft skill interventions, and how we might implement those in a way congruent with our moral responsibility.