University of Mainz, VU University Amsterdam, Tinbergen Institute, Netspar.
J Health Econ. 2011 Dec;30(6):1246-60. doi: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2011.07.014. Epub 2011 Aug 26.
Each year, many pregnant Muslim women fast during Ramadan. Using Indonesian cross-sectional data and building upon work of Almond and Mazumder (2011), I show that people who were prenatally exposed to Ramadan fasting have a poorer general health than others. As predicted by medical theory, this effect is especially pronounced among older people, who also more often report symptoms indicative of coronary heart problems and type 2 diabetes. Among exposed Muslims the share of males is lower, which is most likely caused by death before birth. I show that these effects are unlikely the result of common health shocks correlated to the occurrence of Ramadan, or of fasting mainly occurring among women who would have had unhealthier children anyway.
每年都有许多穆斯林孕妇在斋月期间斋戒。我利用印度尼西亚的横断面数据，并借鉴了 Almond 和 Mazumder（2011）的研究，表明在怀孕期间经历过斋月禁食的人比其他人的一般健康状况更差。正如医学理论所预测的那样，这种影响在老年人中更为明显，他们也更经常报告表明存在冠心病和 2 型糖尿病的症状。在被暴露于斋月禁食的穆斯林中，男性的比例较低，这很可能是由于在出生前就死亡了。我表明，这些影响不太可能是与斋月相关的常见健康冲击的结果，也不太可能是禁食主要发生在本来就会生育不健康孩子的女性中的结果。
