Political violence and child health: Results from Zimbabwe

Abstract

This paper examines how the health of Zimbabwean children was affected by political and election-related violence and land reform in Zimbabwe during the period from 2000 to 2005. These events impacted Zimbabwean livelihoods and increased food insecurity in the country. Our study combines individual child data from the Demographic and Health Surveys that bracket these violent events with information on the location and date of violence from the Armed Conflict Location and Event dataset. To understand how the increase in violence impacted children’s health, the empirical analysis exploits temporal and spatial variation in child height across birth cohorts. Children born after the spike in violence in 2000 had lower height-for-age z-scores than children from earlier cohorts. The results are robust to a placebo test for parallel trends, alternative control groups, selective mortality, and migration. The paper adds to the literature on election-related violence, armed conflict, and land reform. Additionally, it provides guidance on differentiating between timing of violence during multiple political and electoral events, and estimating the impact on rural communities.