Working Paper: NBER ID: w20723
Authors: Marie Louise Schultz-Nielsen; Erdal Tekin; Jane Greve
Abstract: This paper examines whether nutritional disruptions experienced during the stage of fetal development impair an individual’s labor market productivity later in life. We consider intrauterine exposure to the month of Ramadan as a natural experiment that might cause shocks to the inflow of nutrients essential for fetal development. Specifically, we use administrative data from Denmark to investigate the impact of exposure to Ramadan in utero on labor market outcomes of adult Muslim males, including employment status, annual salary, hourly wage rate, and hours of work. Our findings indicate that potential exposure to nutritional disruptions during a critical stage of fetal development has scarring effects on the fetus expressed as poor labor market outcomes later in life. Specifically, exposure to Ramadan in the 7th month of gestation results in a lower likelihood of employment, a lower salary, and reduced labor supply, but not necessarily a lower wage rate. We also document suggestive evidence that these results may partially be driven by increased disability and to a lesser extent by poor educational attainment among those who were exposed to Ramadan during this particular period in utero.
Keywords: Labor Market Outcomes; Nutritional Deficiency; Ramadan; Fetal Development; Muslim Immigrants
JEL Codes: I1; I12; J1; J13; J21; J24; J3
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Exposure to Ramadan during the 7th month of gestation (J13) | Employment likelihood (J68) |
| Exposure to Ramadan during the 7th month of gestation (J13) | Annual salary (J31) |
| Exposure to Ramadan during the 7th month of gestation (J13) | Annual hours worked (J22) |
| Exposure to Ramadan during the 7th month of gestation (J13) | Disability (J14) |
| Exposure to Ramadan during the 7th month of gestation (J13) | Educational attainment (I21) |