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  3. 2022
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  5. Health and Education
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Health and Education

Paper Session

Sunday, Jan. 9, 2022 12:15 PM - 2:15 PM (EST)

Hosted By: Cliometric Society
  • Chair: Gregory Clark, University of California-Davis

Multigenerational Effects of Smallpox Vaccination

Volha Lazuka
,
University of Southern Denmark and Lund University
Peter Sandholt Jensen
,
University of Southern Denmark

Abstract

This paper aims at finding whether vaccination in childhood is an important source of improved health over the life cycle and across generations. We leverage high-quality individual-level data from Sweden covering the full life spans of three generations between 1790 and 2016 and a historical quasi-experiment – a smallpox vaccination campaign. To derive the causal impact of this campaign, we employ the instrumental-variables approach and the siblings/cousins fixed effects. Our results show that the vaccine injection by age 2 improved longevity of the first generation by 14 years and made them much wealthier in adult ages. These effects, with the magnitude reduced by two thirds, persisted to the second and the third generation. Such magnitudes make vaccination a powerful health input in the very long term and suggest the transmission of environmental beyond genetic factors.

Real Wages in Sickness and in Health

Francesco Fiore Melacrinis
,
University of Rome-La Sapienza
Mauro Rota
,
University of Rome-La Sapienza

Abstract

"In our research we investigate the relation between real wages, population and the outbreaks of epidemics on several Italian cities in the XIX century. We use a VEC model to study the correlation between real wages and population, taking in consideration that population changes were affected by several waves of epidemics in XIX century. With this methodology we measure the relation between real wages and population as endogenous variables under the effects of exogenous variables, the epidemics.
Our preliminary analysis shows that real wages of the North were detached from population trend, showing that its economy evolved into a Post-Malthusian regime already before Italian unification. Southern areas of Italy, instead, presented wages linked with population trend, a typical characteristic of the economic Malthusian regime.
In these terms, the use of epidemics as exogenous variables in quantitative analysis could explain the regional inequality in Italy."

Home Economics and Women’s Gateway to Science

Yiling Zhao
,
Peking University
Mike Andrews
,
University of Maryland-Baltimore County

Abstract

"Women are underrepresented in STEM, but they have fair representations in biological sciences. We propose that women entered biological sciences because they were exposed to these subjects in
large numbers through collegiate home economics in the early twentieth century. Home economics was developed in the context of the prevailing germ theory and was designed as a feminine parallel to agriculture studies at land-grant universities. The unique historical
circumstances and institutional setup tied home economic curricula closely to biological sciences. Using college-level data from the Commissioners of Education reports, we establish a causal relationship between home economics and women’s enrollment in science majors in the cross-section. We further compiled a panel of student enrollment by majors from 1910-1940 with data collected from various college yearbooks. In a DID framework, we show that the presence of home economics led to a higher proportion of women choosing a major in science."

Discussant(s)
Camila Saez
,
University of California-Davis
Gaspare Tortorici
,
LISER
Zachary Bleemer
,
Harvard University
JEL Classifications
  • N3 - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy
  • I1 - Health