Short-term and long-term distributional consequences of prenatal malnutrition and stress: using Ramadan as a natural experiment

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dc.citation.articleNumbere001185en_US
dc.contributor.authorMajid, Muhammad Farhanen_US
dc.contributor.authorBehrman, Jereen_US
dc.contributor.authorMani, Subhaen_US
dc.contributor.orgJames A. Baker III Institute for Public Policyen_US
dc.date.accessioned2020-03-10T19:24:09Zen_US
dc.date.available2020-03-10T19:24:09Zen_US
dc.date.issued2019en_US
dc.description.abstractIntroduction: Fetal environments play significant roles in determining adult well-being, particularly as they relate to non-communicable diseases and skill formation. We studied gender-specific distributional consequences of fetal environment (in the form of in-utero exposure to Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting), in Indonesia, on birth weights, performance on Raven’s Colored Progressive Matrices (CPM), math scores, hours worked and earnings. Methods: We used quantile regressions to conduct a quantitative comparison of distributional consequences, by gender, of full month exposures to Ramadan in-utero on outcomes of interest. Our data included Muslim children and adults measured during rounds 1 and 4 of the Indonesian Family Life Survey. Our main outcome measures were: birth weights—559 observations (females) and 624 (males); Raven’s CPM scores—1693 (females) and 1821 (males) for 8–15 year olds; math test scores—1696 (females) and 1825 (males) for 8–15 year olds; hours worked—3181 (females) and 4599 (males) for 18–65 year olds; earnings—2419 (females) and 4019 (males) for 18–65 year olds. Results: Full month of exposure to Ramadan in-utero led to significant reductions at the 5% significance level that were concentrated in the bottom halves of the outcome distributions: among 8–15 years, lower scores on Raven’s CPM tests for females (mean: −9.2%, 10thQ: −19%, 25th Q: −19.4%) and males (mean: −5.6%, 10thQ: −12.5%); lower math scores for females (mean: −8.6%, 25thQ: −15.9%) and males (mean: −8.5%, 10thQ: −13.6%); among females 18–65 years, significant reduction in hours worked (mean: −7.5%, 10thQ: − 26.3%). Conclusion: Events during the fetal period have far-reaching consequences for females and males in the lowest (10th and 25th) quantiles of outcome distributions, affecting the ‘relatively poor’ the most. These results call for caution in interpreting studies on child development that rely on mean comparisons alone.en_US
dc.identifier.citationMajid, Muhammad Farhan, Behrman, Jere and Mani, Subha. "Short-term and long-term distributional consequences of prenatal malnutrition and stress: using Ramadan as a natural experiment." <i>BMJ Global Health,</i> 4, (2019) BMJ: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2018-001185.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/108103en_US
dc.publisherBMJen_US
dc.relation.urihttps://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/consequences-prenatal-malnutrition-and-stress/en_US
dc.rightsThis is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial.en_US
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/en_US
dc.titleShort-term and long-term distributional consequences of prenatal malnutrition and stress: using Ramadan as a natural experimenten_US
dc.typeJournal articleen_US
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