The long-run effects of war on health: Evidence from World War II in France

Olivier Allais (), Guy Fagherazzi () and Julia Mink ()
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Olivier Allais: ALISS - Alimentation et sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement
Guy Fagherazzi: LIH - Luxembourg Institute of Health
Julia Mink: ALISS - Alimentation et sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, Sciences Po - Sciences Po

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Abstract: We investigate the effects of early-life exposure to war on adult health outcomes including cancer, hypertension, angina, infarction, diabetes and obesity. We combine data from the French prospective cohort study E3N on women employed in the French National Education with historical data on World War II. To identify causal effects, we exploit exogenous spatial and temporal variation in war exposure related to the German invasion of France during the Battle of France. The number of French military casualties at the level of the postcode area serves as main measure of exposure. Our results suggest that exposure to the war during the first 5 years of life has significant adverse effects on health in adulthood. A 10 percent increase in the number of deaths per inhabitants in the individual's postcode area of birth increases the probability of suffering from any of the health conditions considered in this study by 0.08 percentage points. This is relative to a mean of 49 percent for the sample as a whole.

Keywords: Early-life exposure; Developmental origins; World war II; Human capital development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-his
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Published in Social Science & Medicine, 2021, 276, 13 p. ⟨10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113812⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03275491

DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113812

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