Long-term effects of the 1959-1961 China famine
Subtitle: mainland China and Hong Kong
By: Douglas Almond ... [et al.].
Contributors: Almond, Douglas.; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series -- no. 13384.; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research) -- working paper no. 13384.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 39
Subjects: Fetal malnutrition -- China; Famines -- China -- 20th century; China -- Social conditions -- Econometric models
Description: This paper estimates the effects of maternal malnutrition exploiting the 1959-1961 Chinese famine as a natural experiment. In the 1% sample of the 2000 Chinese Census, we find that fetal exposure to acute maternal malnutrition had compromised a range of socioeconomic outcomes, including: literacy, labor market status, wealth and marriage market outcomes. Women married spouses with less education and later, as did men, if at all. In addition, maternal malnutrition reduced the sex ratio (males to females) in two generations -- those prenatally exposed and their children -- presumably through heightened male mortality. This tendency toward female offspring is interpretable in light of the Trivers-Willard (1973) hypothesis, according to which parents in poor condition should skew the offspring sex ratio toward daughters. Hong Kong natality micro data from 1984-2004 further confirm this pattern of female offspring among mainland-born residents exposed to malnutrition in utero.
Notes: "September 2007"

Includes bibliographical references (p. 23-25).

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