Working Paper: NBER ID: w19756
Authors: Taryn Dinkelman
Abstract: Drought is Africa's primary natural disaster and a pervasive source of income risk for poor households. This paper documents the long-run health effects of early life exposure to drought and investigates an important source of heterogeneity in these effects. Combining birth cohort variation in South African Census data with cross-sectional and temporal drought variation, I estimate long-run health impacts of drought exposure among Africans confined to homelands during apartheid. Drought exposure in early childhood significantly raises later life male disability rates by 4% and reduces cohort size. Among a subset of homelands - the TBVC areas - disability effects are double and negative cohort effects are significantly larger. I show that differences in spatial mobility restrictions that influence the extent of migrant networks across TBVC and non-TBVC areas contribute to this heterogeneity. Placebo checks show no differential disability impacts of drought exposure across TBVC and non-TBVC areas after the repeal of migration restrictions. The results show that although drought has significant long-run effects on health human capital, migrant networks in poor economies provide one channel through which families mitigate these negative impacts of local environmental shock.
Keywords: Drought; Health Effects; Migration; South Africa
JEL Codes: I15; J61; N37; O15
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| early life exposure to drought (Q54) | male disability rates (J14) |
| early life exposure to drought (Q54) | cohort size (C92) |
| drought exposure (Q54) | male disability rates (TBVC areas) (J14) |
| drought exposure (Q54) | cohort size (TBVC areas) (C24) |
| TBVC areas (P33) | worse health impacts (I14) |