Working Paper: NBER ID: w14031
Authors: Sharon L. Maccini; Dean Yang
Abstract: How sensitive is long-run individual well-being to environmental conditions early in life? This paper examines the effect of weather conditions around the time of birth on the health, education, and socioeconomic outcomes of Indonesian adults born between 1953 and 1974. We link historical rainfall for each individual's birth-year and birth-location with current adult outcomes from the 2000 wave of the Indonesia Family Life Survey. Higher early-life rainfall has large positive effects on the adult outcomes of women, but not of men. Women with 20% higher rainfall (relative to normal local rainfall) in their year and location of birth are 3.8 percentage points less likely to self-report poor or very poor health, attain 0.57 centimeters greater height, complete 0.22 more grades of schooling, and live in households that score 0.12 standard deviations higher on an asset index. These patterns most plausibly reflect a positive impact of rainfall on agricultural output, leading to higher household incomes and food availability and better health for infant girls. We present suggestive evidence that eventual benefits for adult women's socioeconomic status are most strongly mediated by improved schooling attainment, which in turn improves socioeconomic status in adulthood.
Keywords: early-life rainfall; health outcomes; education; socioeconomic status; gender bias
JEL Codes: I1; I2; I3; O1; O15; Q5
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| higher rainfall during the birth year (J19) | decrease in the likelihood of women self-reporting poor or very poor health (I14) |
| higher rainfall during the birth year (J19) | improved health outcomes (I14) |
| higher rainfall during the birth year (J19) | increased agricultural productivity (Q11) |
| higher rainfall during the birth year (J19) | higher household income (D19) |
| 20% increase in rainfall relative to normal (Q54) | greater height (I14) |
| 20% increase in rainfall relative to normal (Q54) | more grades of schooling completed (I21) |
| higher rainfall during the birth year (J19) | higher asset index score (G12) |
| higher rainfall during the birth year (J19) | improved long-term wellbeing (I31) |