Trade Integration, Family Formation, and the 'Korean' Deaths of Despair: Evidence from Sigungu-Level Bilateral Exposure

Jae Heon Jung

No kudym_v1, SocArXiv from Center for Open Science

Abstract: Korea-China bilateral trade integration during the 2000s offers a natural setting to study trade exposure and mortality in an export-oriented economy. Using a shift-share instrumental variable on 221 Korean districts, I document a protective effect on working-age deaths of despair (β = −0.127, or β = −0.071 with province fixed effects and modernization controls), structurally opposite to the adverse U.S. and U.K. findings. The effect is concentrated on the deaths-of-despair composite under family-wise error control; placebo outcomes show no response. Marriage-market and family-formation channels mediate 59 percent of the effect, distinct from the labor-market and opioid pathways that dominate the U.S. case.

Date: 2026-05-14
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:socarx:kudym_v1

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/kudym_v1

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