Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/90006 
Year of Publication: 
2013
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 7692
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper uses the Bangladesh famine of 1974 as a natural experiment to estimate the impact of intrauterine malnutrition on sex of the child and infant mortality. In addition, we estimate the impact of malnutrition on post-famine pregnancy outcomes. Using the 1996 Matlab Health and Socioeconomic Survey (MHSS), we find that women who were pregnant during the famine were less likely to have male children. Moreover, children who were in utero during the most severe period of the Bangladesh famine were 32 percent more likely to die within one month of birth compared to their siblings who were not in utero during the famine. Finally, controlling for pre-famine fertility, we find that women who were pregnant during the Famine experienced a higher number of stillbirths in the post-Famine years. This increase appears to be driven by an excess number of male stillbirths.
Subjects: 
malnutrition
infant mortality
fertility
JEL: 
I15
J13
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
253.45 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.