Violent conflict and the child quantity–quality tradeoff

Apsara KARKI Nepal, Martin Halla and Steven Stillman
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Apsara KARKI Nepal: CIMMYT, Lalitpur, Nepal
Martin Halla: Vienna University of Economics and Business

JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, 2025, vol. 91, issue 3, 343-377

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.

Keywords: Conflict; Height-for-age; Nepal; quantity-quality model of fertility; Violence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 H56 J13 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-09-30
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https://doi.org/10.1017/dem.2023.28 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Violent Conflict and the Child Quantity-Quality Tradeoff (2018)
Working Paper: Violent Conflict and the Child Quantity-Quality Tradeoff (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ctl:louvde:v:91:y:2025:i:3:p:343-377

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