Fathers’ Employment and Sons’ Stature: The Long-Run Effects of a Positive Regional Employment Shock in South Africa’s Mining Industry
利用南非1975-1977年采矿业就业意外增长，比较父亲受益与未受益的儿童成年后身高，发现冲击仅影响胎儿或新生儿，支持胎儿起源假说，并揭示母亲营养的重要性。
I exploit the unexpected increase in employment in 1975, 1976, and 1977 in the South African homelands to compare the long-term adult outcomes of children whose fathers benefited from the employment increase to those who did not. Using a standard difference-in-difference approach, I find that the shock affected males who were either newborn or in utero at the time, providing support to the fetal-origins hypothesis and showing the importance of mother’s nutrition. The income increases did not raise household income above the poverty datum line, explaining why older individuals were not affected. This study provides previously unmeasured individual-level information on the quality of life in the homelands during apartheid, an era when African living standards were neglected but unmeasured because of a lack of data collection.