Violent conflict and the child quantity–quality tradeoff
Year: 2025
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: We show that the exposure to war-related violence increases the quantity of children temporarily, with permanent negative consequences for the quality of the current and previous cohorts. Our empirical evidence is based on Nepal, which experienced a 10 year long civil conflict of varying intensity. We exploit that villages affected by the conflict had the same trend in fertility as non-affected villages prior to the onset of conflict and employ a difference-in-differences estimator. We find that women in affected villages increased their fertility during the conflict by 19%, while child height-for-age declined by 10%. Supporting evidence suggests that the temporary fertility increase was the main pathway leading to reduced child height, as opposed to direct impacts of the conflict.
Source: WU Research
DOI: 10.1017/dem.2023.28
Language: English
Topic: Health and Conflict Studies
Subfield: General Health Professions
Field: Health Professions
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4289776917