The Mexican Drug War and Early-Life Health: The Impact of Violent Crime on Birth Outcomes

Ryan Brown

Demography, 2018, vol. 55, issue 1, No 13, 319-340

Abstract: Abstract This study examines the relationship between exposure to violent crime in utero and birth weight using longitudinal data from a household survey conducted in Mexico. Controlling for selective migration and fertility, the results suggest that early gestational exposure to the recent escalation of the Mexican Drug War is associated with a substantial decrease in birth weight. This association is especially pronounced among children born to mothers of low socioeconomic status and among children born to mothers who score poorly on a mental health index.

Keywords: Birth outcomes; Crime; Selective fertility; Mexico (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (59)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s13524-017-0639-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
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:spr:demogr:v:55:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s13524-017-0639-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/13524

DOI: 10.1007/s13524-017-0639-2

Access Statistics for this article

Demography is currently edited by John D. Iceland, Stephen A. Matthews and Jenny Van Hook

More articles in Demography from Springer, Population Association of America (PAA)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().