Empirical Essays on the Long-Term Consequences of Early Infant Conditions for Health, Productivity, and Family Formation

Abstract

Plenty of evidence shows that living conditions during pregnancy and infancy shape long-term well-being, partly for multiple generations. External changes in the living conditions for children can be found in a unique setting in modern history: the negative consequences of National-Socialism and the Second World War in German territory. I compile a data set which joins individual information on health, social standing, and productivity with regional information on living conditions, making use of high regional and temporal variation. Applying various difference-in-differences estimations, I can draw conclusions on the association between early life hunger and stress and measures of well-being later in life, like general health, specific old-age diseases, satisfaction with life, and family life.