Childhood Health Shocks, Comparative Advantage, and Long-Term Outcomes: Evidence from the Last Danish Polio Epidemic / Miriam Gensowski, Torben Heien Nielsen, Nete Munk Nielsen, Maya Rossin-Slater, Miriam Wüst.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gensowski, Miriam.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Nielsen, Torben Heien.

Nielsen, Nete Munk.

Rossin-Slater, Maya.

Wüst, Miriam.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w24753.

NBER working paper series no. w24753

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Childhood Health Shocks, Comparative Advantage, and Long-Term Outcomes

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2018.

Summary:

A large literature documents that childhood health shocks have lasting negative consequences for adult outcomes. This paper demonstrates that the adversity of childhood physical disability can be mediated by individuals' educational and occupational choices, which reflect their comparative advantage. We merge records on children hospitalized with poliomyelitis during the 1952 Danish epidemic to census and administrative data, and exploit quasi-random variation in paralysis incidence. While childhood disability increases the likelihood of early retirement and disability pension receipt at age 50, paralytic polio survivors obtain higher education and are more likely to work in white-collar and computer-demanding jobs than their non-paralytic counterparts.

Notes:

Print version record

June 2018.