Seminar: Lifelong effects of in-utero stress on labour market outcomes
Professor Maarten Lindeboom (VU Amsterdam + Monash) will be joining us by Zoom, offering insights into ‘Lifelong effects of in-utero stress on labour market outcomes’.
This paper analyses the effects of in-utero exposure to maternal stress on lifelong labour market outcomes within an administrative dataset on the universe of Italian workers. We exploit a quasi-experimental setting relative to the sudden outbreak of World War II (WWII) conflicts in Italy and the corresponding onset of Nazi violence. We use granular data on monthly conflict incidents at the village level, which allows us to identify the effects of exposure to violence more accurately than prior studies. We analyze differences in terms of long-run labour outcomes of men who were born before or were in-utero at the start of the violence, hence compare cohorts born in municipalities who experienced Nazi rides, versus the same cohorts born in municipalities without such violence. We find that exposure to stress in-utero exerts a negative effect on a range of subsequent labour outcomes. The gap opens up very early as the exposed individuals have lower qualifications and earnings already by the age of 30. More importantly, we find that the effects do not dissipate along the career, but rather they increase with time. The gap widens along the working career and culminates at the age of 55-60. The effects are strongest for exposures in the first months of pregnancy. In order to understand the evolution of the penalty over time, we study how the exposed individuals react to an additional random shock throughout their working career. We show that workers exposed to in-utero stress have reduced coping abilities to mitigate an episode of a mass layoff, which deepens their relative disadvantage over time.
We'll be asking all to mute their microphones during the presentation, but to switch video settings on where possible, so that our presenter can see their audience. Questions and discussion will be invited from the audience at several points during the presentation.
At CHE, we are working on running as many of our seminars as possible online while COVID-19 remains an obstacle to getting together. As we will be working with experts and colleagues in other parts of the world there will be some movement in the times and days that seminars run to take into account different time zones and availabilities. If you would like to be on our seminar email list, please be directly in contact by email to shannon.stanwell@monash.edu.
Hope to see you there!
Event Details
- Date:
- 27 April 2020 at 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm
- Venue:
- This seminar will take place via Zoom - please email shannon.stanwell@monash.edu for details.
- Categories:
- Health Economics
Description
Professor Maarten Lindeboom (VU Amsterdam + Monash) will be joining us by Zoom, offering insights into ‘Lifelong effects of in-utero stress on labour market outcomes’.
This paper analyses the effects of in-utero exposure to maternal stress on lifelong labour market outcomes within an administrative dataset on the universe of Italian workers. We exploit a quasi-experimental setting relative to the sudden outbreak of World War II (WWII) conflicts in Italy and the corresponding onset of Nazi violence. We use granular data on monthly conflict incidents at the village level, which allows us to identify the effects of exposure to violence more accurately than prior studies. We analyze differences in terms of long-run labour outcomes of men who were born before or were in-utero at the start of the violence, hence compare cohorts born in municipalities who experienced Nazi rides, versus the same cohorts born in municipalities without such violence. We find that exposure to stress in-utero exerts a negative effect on a range of subsequent labour outcomes. The gap opens up very early as the exposed individuals have lower qualifications and earnings already by the age of 30. More importantly, we find that the effects do not dissipate along the career, but rather they increase with time. The gap widens along the working career and culminates at the age of 55-60. The effects are strongest for exposures in the first months of pregnancy. In order to understand the evolution of the penalty over time, we study how the exposed individuals react to an additional random shock throughout their working career. We show that workers exposed to in-utero stress have reduced coping abilities to mitigate an episode of a mass layoff, which deepens their relative disadvantage over time.
We'll be asking all to mute their microphones during the presentation, but to switch video settings on where possible, so that our presenter can see their audience. Questions and discussion will be invited from the audience at several points during the presentation.
At CHE, we are working on running as many of our seminars as possible online while COVID-19 remains an obstacle to getting together. As we will be working with experts and colleagues in other parts of the world there will be some movement in the times and days that seminars run to take into account different time zones and availabilities. If you would like to be on our seminar email list, please be directly in contact by email to shannon.stanwell@monash.edu.
Hope to see you there!