Research

Abstract: The 1848 Public Health Act made the state the guarantor of public health and environmental quality for the first time in England and Wales, introducing sanitation measures for districts with a mortality rate of 23 deaths per 1000 people or more. Preliminary analysis reveals that the Act led to a reduction in mortality, yet solely relying on improvements in a crude measure such as mortality may overlook intrinsic changes in population health and abilities. To address this in a historical context, this study employs a novel dataset to analyze the impact of shocks to the health environment in early childhood on a comprehensive measure such as intergenerational mobility. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, the analysis reveals that sons exposed to the act during early childhood were 5% more likely to pursue a different occupation than their fathers and 16% more likely to be in a better-ranked occupation than their fathers. This was driven by a transition of sons away from farming and unskilled jobs into skilled/semiskilled jobs. Furthermore, sons with early childhood exposure to the Act were more likely to be in occupations that required literacy, indicative of acquiring higher cognitive abilities. Evidence also suggests that spatial mobility played a role in these outcomes. The results emphasize the enduring effects of early childhood health shocks and thus underscore the role of public health interventions in shaping economic opportunities across generations.

Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of armed conflict on fertility in Sri Lanka. Using a difference-in-difference methodology, I find that conflict led to a reduction in female fertility in Sri Lanka with evidence of an increased female age at marriage in high conflict districts as a mechanism. The paper further focuses on ethnic disparities in demographic adjustments triggered by exposure to conflict. It determines if conflict altered fertility patterns of the Sinhalese majority and the Sri Lankan Tamil minority differently. Estimates suggest that there is a differential in fertility adjustments of the two ethnic groups in response to conflict. While both groups experienced reduced fertility, the reduction was significantly smaller for the Sri Lankan Tamils compared to the Sinhalese across various model specifications. There is also a presence of an ethnic group level replacement effect that led to the lesser reduction in fertility for Sri Lankan Tamils. These results contribute to literature on impact of armed conflict and underscore the importance of studying demographic adjustments by sub-groups, specifically ethnicity in this context, as the intensity of adjustment often varies with socio-political vulnerability of the group. Understanding these disparities is crucial as a sustained demographic differential has the potential to impact the ethnic composition of Sri Lanka and may further crystallize the ethnic divide in an already volatile political setting.