JOB MARKET PAPER

Infertility risk and the timing of marriage

 Infertility - the impaired ability to conceive or carry a pregnancy to term - is experienced by 1 in 6 individuals in Africa.  Beyond the often severe consequences suffered by those directly affected, high infertility rates can have broad societal impacts: In places where the risk of infertility is high, people may respond by marrying and having children at a younger age to increase their chances of reaching their fertility target. In this paper, I investigate the link between infertility risk and marriage timing with data from Madagascar. In particular, I study how infertility risk affects the probability of child marriage, a practice associated with a range of adverse outcomes for young brides and their children. I use spatial variation in infertility rates caused by schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease prevalent across sub-Saharan Africa. The identification strategy compares the effect of two strains of this disease, both highly endemic in Madagascar. The two strains share key transmission mechanisms and have comparable health impacts, except that one leads to infertility while the other does not. I construct a community-level dataset of the exposure to the two strains of schistosomiasis. Exposure to the infertility-causing strain increases the probability that a woman is infertile by 20-40%. Analysing the implications for marriage and fertility timing, I find that exposure to infertility-causing strain increases the probability of child marriage with up to up to 22%, with similar effects on the probability of giving birth during adolescence. If girls are expected to marry at a young age, parents may invest less in their education. I find suggestive evidence that women in communities exposed to the infertility-causing strain are less likely to have any primary school education. 

Presented: Prato Summer School in Development 2022, (Prato) EUDN PhD conference 2022  (Stockholm),  SDEV PhD conference 2022 (Columbia University)

WORKING PAPERS

Economic consequences of maternal health complications with Ulrika Ahrsjö

Abstract. We study the effects of a common health shock to mothers during childbirth - birth tears - on health and labor market outcomes. One in twenty first-time mothers who have a vaginal delivery suffer a severe birth tear, which can have long-lasting adverse effects on health and the quality of life. Using a matched control group event study design, we find that severe birth tears lead to earnings losses in the first five years after childbirth that are seven percent larger than the average earnings loss among mothers. This effect is mostly concentrated among mothers with low SES backgrounds, while high SES mothers are found to seek more health care following their injury.

Presented: Public Health Seminar 2023 (Stockholm)

Locust impacts with Eyal Frank, Josephine Gatois, Amir Jina, Gordon McCord, Anouch Missirian, Anna Tompsett 

Abstract.  What makes investing in disaster prevention systems economically optimal? The necessary underlying monitoring systems are costly to maintain, and it can be even costlier to act upon the signals they provide. The larger the ratio between the damages that preventative action avoids, and the maintenance and mitigation costs of the system, the more beneficial the system is. We study this question in the context of the impact of locust swarm outbreaks - known to devour entire agricultural fields - on human well-being. Our analysis combines data from 1985 to 2020 across Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia on the monitoring of locust populations, and data from the Demographic and Health Surveys. We find that  in-utero exposure to a locust swarm reduces height-for-age by 0.36 standard deviations, and increases the probability of stunting by 7 percentage points (a 16% increase). In addition, we find meaningful reductions in educational attainment and age at first marriage for women who experience high cumulative exposure in childhood and adolescence. Because locust monitoring suffers from non-classical measurement error---monitoring is targeted towards control operations and is non-representative in its coverage---we develop an instrumental variable. Our approach uses the LASSO with data from locust breeding areas---where monitoring is much more consistent---to generate predicted locust swarm values outside of the breeding areas. We then use this instrument to recover consistent signs, and comparable magnitudes for the treatment effects of locust exposure, relative to the fixed effects regressions. 

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

The association between Immune-related conditions across the life-course and provoked vulvodynia

Harlow, B.L., Coleman, C.M., Mühlrad, H., Yan, J., Linnros, E., Lu, D., Fox, M.P. and Bohm-Starke, N. 

The Journal of Pain. 2023.