Does Early-life Famine Exposure Lead to Healthy Later-life Dietary Behavior: Evidence from the Great Chinese Famine

Abstract

This paper investigates the long-run effect of early-life exposure to famine on survivors’ dietary behavior. By exploiting exogenous variations in local severity of the Great Chinese Famine and variations of different cohorts, we conduct a difference-in-differences analysis. Based on detailed three-day food intake records from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, we find that famine exposure led the famine cohort who was conceived or born during the famine to adopt healthier dietary behaviors, as evidenced by a higher healthy eating score and a healthier dietary composition. Additionally, the pre-famine cohort exposed to the famine at ages 9-12 in late childhood exhibited a healthier food composition, characterized by a higher share of aquatic products. However, no statistically significant effects were observed for the pre-famine cohorts that experienced the famine in early and middle childhood. The results remain robust across various sensitivity checks. We propose that early-life famine exposure influences dietary behavior through mechanisms such as awareness of healthy eating, diet knowledge and risk aversion.