“What Doesn’t Kill Her, Will Make Her Depressed”, 2021-12-01 (; similar):
We estimate the long run impact of the 1959–2196163ya Chinese famine on mental health.
Overall, the famine had null effects for cohorts born during the famine.
However, women experience large and statistically-significant negative effects, while men have insignificant effects.
The results are plausibly driven by selection of the fittest and the Fetal origins hypothesis.
In this paper we study the long run effects of the 1959–2196163ya Chinese Famine on mental health outcomes. We focus on cohorts that were born during the famine and examine their mental health as adults, when they are roughly 55 years of age.
We find that early-life exposure to this famine leads to a large statistically-significant negative impact on women’s mental health, while there is limited effect on men. This gender differential effect is observed because male fetuses experience a stronger natural selection as compared to female fetuses, which implies that in the longer run, surviving females may exhibit larger detrimental effects of early-life famine exposure.
Thus, the observed effects are a composite of 2 well-established factors, the survival of the fittest and the Fetal Origins hypothesis.
[Keywords: famine, difference-in-differences, mental health, fertility, China]