Political Instability and Birth Outcomes: Evidence from the 1981 Military Coup in Spain

Ainoa Aparicio and Libertad Gonzalez

No 13674, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We study the effect of exposure to political instability in-utero on health at birth. We exploit the coup d'état that took place in Spain on February 23, 1981. Although short-lived and unsuccessful, the event generated stress and fear among the population, especially in areas that had suffered more repression during the Civil War and the recent dictatorship. We follow a difference-in-differences strategy and compare birth outcomes before and after the coup, in areas that were differentially "affected". We find that children who were in utero during the coup in more affected areas were born with significantly lower birth-weight (around 9 grams lighter), especially if they were exposed to the coup in the first or second trimester of pregnancy. We contribute to the literature on the effects of maternal stress by focusing on an acute (and relatively common) source of distress that is unlikely to have affected newborn health via other channels.

Keywords: political instability; birth weight; birth outcomes; military coup (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44 pages
Date: 2020-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-hea, nep-his and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published - published in: Health Economics, 2021, 30 (2), 328-341

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp13674.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Political instability and birth outcomes: Evidence from the 1981 military coup in Spain (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13674

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().