Social, economic and environmental experiences in early life can have large and lasting effects on human capital. Negative shocks to a child’s environment can permanently alter the trajectory of psychological and physical development. More broadly, consistent exposure over several years to different environments than peers can induce lasting long-term differences in domains as different as occupational or educational attainment, earnings, stature, and reproductive history. That is, adult economic behavior and outcomes are not simply the result of rational choices made at the time, but influenced by past choices made by parents. Much of the research on early life conditions and later life outcomes, particularly on cohorts born before World War II has focused on men, because men’s lives are easier to reconstruct from historical data. This panel shifts attention to women’s early life conditions, with particular attention to differences from male patterns.