Lasting Impact on Health Through the Lenses of Severity in Earthquake

Abstract

Exposure to extreme shock in early life is found to have lasting impact even in later lives. By exploiting the exogenous variation in exposure to shock measured by the intensity of an earthquake and the age of the children, we estimate the impact of a 7.7 MW earthquake happened in the year 2001, in Gujarat, a western state of India, on the health stock of the children who were in utero or below three years at that time. Using the India Human Development Survey (IHDS-1) data of 2004-05, and earthquake intensity data (Hough et al 2002), we find, an affected girl child of 3-6 years old, to be significantly shorter by 5-9 cm as compared to her unaffected cohort. Our estimates are robust to different specifications, including district and birth-year fixed effects. The placebo estimates of falsely constructed exposure produce supporting evidence. Although the data limitations restrict our primary analysis to be conducted among the girls, a different specification indicates a similar negative impact to hold among boys as well. Additionally, the households using services to meet nutritional needs of children and pregnant women through the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) of the government of India, seem to be least affected. Our findings highlight the importance of universal healthcare and nutritional delivery services to mitigate the impacts of early-life negative shocks.