The persistent effects of in utero nutrition shocks over the life cycle: Evidence from Ramadan fasting

Majid, Muhammad Farhan

doi:10.1016/j.jdeveco.2015.06.006

Cited by 101 publications

(111 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…The most common approach in this literature is the use of extreme and negative events such as famines (e.g., the Dutch Hunger Winter, the Bangladeshi famine of 1974, and the Chinese famine of 1959-61) or disease outbreaks (e.g., the 1918 influenza epidemic) as natural experiments. 1 While the majority of the previous studies have focused on health outcomes, there has been growing interest in exploring whether the events and the conditions experienced in utero might also extent to outcomes related to human capital development (e.g., Almond, 2006;Almond and Mazumder, 2011;Almond et al, 2014;Field et al, 2009;Majid, 2013;Neelsen and Stratmann, 2011;Scholte et al, 2012;Schultz-Nielsen et al, 2014). 2 The consensus finding in these studies is that exposure to disease environment or malnutrition during the period of gestational development results in poor human capital outcomes measured by educational attainment, employment, and earnings.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Their results indicate that Muslim children who were exposed to Ramadan in utero during the first trimester of pregnancy score significantly lower on all three types of assessments. The other Ramadan papers listed above focus on either employment or health outcomes (Mazumder and Almond, 2011;Schultz-Nielsen et al, 2014;Van Ewijk, 2011) or rely on survey data from Indonesia (Majid, 2013;Van Ewijk, 2011). In fact, with the exceptions of a few recent 4 Almond and Mazumder (2011) use data from multiple sources including vital records and health statistics from Michigan and census data from Iraq and Uganda.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In fact, with the exceptions of a few recent 4 Almond and Mazumder (2011) use data from multiple sources including vital records and health statistics from Michigan and census data from Iraq and Uganda. Majid (2013) considered several life-cycle outcomes including cognitive test scores and study hours in elementary school in addition to birth weight, child labor, and adult labor market outcomes. However, he uses survey data from Indonesia.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fetal Malnutrition And Academic Success: Evidence From Muslim Immigrants In Denmark

Greve¹,

Schultz-Nielsen

Tekin

2015

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E ABSTRACT Fetal Malnutrition and Academic Success: Evidence from Muslim Immigrants in Denmark *This paper examines the impact of potential fetal malnutrition on the academic proficiency of Muslim students in Denmark. We account for the endogeneity of fetal malnutrition by using the exposure to the month of Ramadan during time in utero as a natural experiment, under the assumption that some Muslim women might have fasted during Ramadan when they were pregnant. In some of our specifications, we use a sample of students from predominantly non-Muslim countries as an additional control group to address potential seasonality in cognitive outcomes in a difference-indifferences framework. Our outcome measures are the standardized test scores from the national exams on the subjects of Danish, English, Math, and Science administered by the Danish Ministry of Education. Our results indicate that fetal exposure to Ramadan has a negative impact on the achievement scores of Muslim students, especially females. Our analysis further reveals that most of these effects are concentrated on the children with low socioeconomic status (SES) background. These results indicate that fetal insults such as exposure to malnutrition may not only hamper the cognitive development of children subject to such conditions, but it may also complicate the efforts of policy-makers in improving the human capital, health, and labor market outcomes of low-SES individuals. Our findings highlight the importance of interventions designed to help economically disadvantaged women during pregnancy. JEL Classification:I12, I14, I24, J15

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Fetal Malnutrition And Academic Success: Evidence From Muslim Immigrants In Denmark

Greve¹,

Schultz-Nielsen

Tekin

2015

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“…The evidence from these studies is primarily correlational because women who fast during pregnancy are likely to be different from those who do not in ways that are correlated with the outcomes analyzed Majid, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Labor Market Effects of Intrauterine Exposure to Nutritional Deficiency: Evidence from Administrative Data on Muslim Immigrants in Denmark

Schultz-Nielsen

Tekin

Greve³

2014

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu This paper examines whether nutritional disruptions experienced during the stage of fetal development impair an individual's labor market productivity later in life. We consider intrauterine exposure to the month of Ramadan as a natural experiment that might cause shocks to the inflow of nutrients essential for fetal development. Specifically, we use administrative data from Denmark to investigate the impact of exposure to Ramadan in utero on labor market outcomes of adult Muslim males, including employment status, annual salary, hourly wage rate, and hours of work. Our findings indicate that potential exposure to nutritional disruptions during a critical stage of fetal development has scarring effects on the fetus expressed as poor labor market outcomes later in life. Specifically, exposure to Ramadan in the 7 th month of gestation results in a lower likelihood of employment, a lower salary, and reduced labor supply, but not necessarily a lower wage rate. We also document suggestive evidence that these results may partially be driven by increased disability and to a lesser extent by poor educational attainment among those who were exposed to Ramadan during this particular period in utero. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E S JEL Classification:I1, I12, J1, J13, J22, J24, J3

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“…Por un lado, este estrés puede ser provocado por una situación relacionada con aspectos de la persona, como la religión o las costumbres de la madre, o por otro lado a causa de factores ajenos relacionados con el contexto. Esta tesis, sin embargo, está centrada mayormente con la más reciente literatura que utiliza las características particulares del mes sagrado para identificar los efectos adversos de la malnutrición intrauterina en el peso al nacer, vulnerabilidad a enfermedades crónicas y discapacidades a una edad avanzada, el salario en la adultez y la educación (Almond 2004, van Ewik 2011, Majid 2012y Karimi 2014…”

Section: Evidencia De Efectos Del Stress Intrauterinounclassified

Efectos del cumplimiento del Ramadán durante el embarazo sobre el peso al nacer con datos de África

Cantet¹

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El peso al nacer es una de las medidas más utilizada como proxy de la salud y bienestar infantil en la literatura económica. Aquellos niños con bajo peso al nacer (LBW), convencionalmente definido como menos de 2500 gramos, suelen experimentar efectos severos sobre la salud, la mortalidad, la morbilidad y la discapacidad. Por otro lado, el bajo peso al nacer también se traduce en costos sustanciales en el sector de la salud e impone una carga significativa sobre la sociedad en su conjunto. El desarrollo corporal de las madres al igual que su estilo de vida determinarán el peso del bebé al momento de nacer. Este estudio se centra en el desarrollo de la vida fetal y explora cómo la desnutrición en el útero afecta al peso al nacer y durante los primeros años de vida mediante el uso de las fechas exactas de nacimiento de los niños menores de 5 años y la explotación de la naturaleza calendárica de la incidencia de las déficits nutricionales derivadas de la exposición con el mes de ayuno musulmán que ocurre durante el Ramadán. La estrategia de identificación econométrica utiliza a las variaciones en el tiempo de exposición al Ramadán durante la gestación y la religión para identificar el efecto el peso.

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The persistent effects of in utero nutrition shocks over the life cycle: Evidence from Ramadan fasting

Cited by 101 publications

References 37 publications

Fetal Malnutrition And Academic Success: Evidence From Muslim Immigrants In Denmark

Fetal Malnutrition And Academic Success: Evidence From Muslim Immigrants In Denmark

Labor Market Effects of Intrauterine Exposure to Nutritional Deficiency: Evidence from Administrative Data on Muslim Immigrants in Denmark

Efectos del cumplimiento del Ramadán durante el embarazo sobre el peso al nacer con datos de África

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