Health Shocks of the Father and Longevity of the Children's Children

Dora Costa

No 29553, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: I document the transmission of a grandfather’s net nutritional deprivation in young adulthood across multiple generations using the grandfather’s ex-POW status in the US Civil War (1861-5). I uncover an association between a grandfather’s ex-POW status and the longevity after age 45 of his sons and male-line grandsons but not of his daughters, granddaughters, female-line grandsons, children-in-law, or grandchildren-in-law. Male-line grandsons lost roughly a year of life at age 45, or 4% of remaining life expectancy, if descended from ex-POWs who suffered severe captivity conditions than if descended from non-POWs. I find that the grandfather’s age at exposure, own education and own and father’s poor late gestatational conditions, as proxied by season of birth, mediate this relationship. I rule out socioeconomic status, marriage and mortality selection, and cultural or psychological transmission from grandfather to grandson as explanations. I cannot rule out an epigenetic explanation.

JEL-codes: I14 I19 N31 N32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-hea and nep-his
Note: AG CH DAE
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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