EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Severe Prenatal Shocks and Adolescent Health: Evidence from the Dutch Hunger Winter

Gabriella Conti, L.H. Lumey, ,, Peter Ekamper and Stavros Poupakis
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Govert Bijwaard

No 16633, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: This paper investigates impacts, mechanisms and selection effects of prenatal exposure to multiple shocks, by exploiting the unique natural experiment of the Dutch Hunger Winter. At the end of World War II, a famine occurred abruptly in the Western Netherlands (November 1944 - May 1945), pushing the previously and subsequently well-nourished Dutch population to the brink of starvation. We link high-quality military recruits data with objective health measurements for the cohorts born in the years surrounding WWII with newly digitised historical records on calories and nutrient composition of the war rations, daily temperature, and warfare deaths. Using difference-in-differences and triple differences research designs, we show that the cohorts exposed to the Dutch Hunger Winter since early gestation have a higher Body Mass Index and an increased probability of being overweight at age 18, and that this effect is partly accounted for by warfare exposure and a reduction in energy-adjusted protein intake. Moreover, we account for selective mortality using a copula-based approach and newly-digitised data on survival rates, and find evidence of both selection and scarring effects. These results emphasise the complexity of the mechanisms at play in studying the consequences of early conditions.

Keywords: Health; Fetal origins hypothesis; Famine; Prenatal exposure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-10
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP16633 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Journal Article: Severe prenatal shocks and adolescent health: Evidence from the Dutch Hunger Winter (2024) Downloads
Working Paper: Severe Prenatal Shocks and Adolescent Health: Evidence from the Dutch Hunger Winter (2021) Downloads
Working Paper: Severe prenatal shocks and adolescent health: evidence from the Dutch hunger winter (2021) Downloads
Working Paper: Severe Prenatal Shocks and Adolescent Health: Evidence from the Dutch Hunger Winter (2021) Downloads
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:cpr:ceprdp:16633

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP16633

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-23
Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:16633