Unfortunate Moms and Unfortunate Children : Impact of the Nepali Civil War on Women's Stature and Intergenerational Health
This paper analyzes the long-term health impacts of Nepal's 1996-2006 civil conflict. It exploits the heterogeneity in conflict intensity across villages and birth cohorts to document long-term health and intergenerational impacts. The analysi...
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| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/306171561687963021/Unfortunate-Moms-and-Unfortunate-Children-Impact-of-the-Nepali-Civil-War-on-Womens-Stature-and-Intergenerational-Health http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31999 |
| Summary: | This paper analyzes the long-term health
impacts of Nepal's 1996-2006 civil conflict. It
exploits the heterogeneity in conflict intensity across
villages and birth cohorts to document long-term health and
intergenerational impacts. The analysis finds that childhood
exposure to conflict and, in particular, exposure starting
in infancy, negatively impacts attained adult height. Each
additional month of exposure decreases a women's adult
height by 1.36 millimeters. The impacts are not limited to
first-generation. The analysis also finds that a
mother's exposure to conflict in her childhood is
detrimental to her child's health. Mothers exposed to
conflict during their childhood have more children and live
in less wealthy households, likely reducing their ability to
invest during their children’s critical period of physical
development. The finding points to a potential trade-off
between the quantity and quality of children. The paper uses
information on monthly conflict incidents at the village
level, which allows identifying identify the effects of
exposure to conflict more accurately than prior studies. |
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