ESOMAS Department, University of Turin, Turin, Italy.
Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Barcelona GSE, Barcelona, Spain.
Health Econ. 2021 Feb;30(2):328-341. doi: 10.1002/hec.4201. Epub 2020 Nov 21.
We study the effect of exposure to political instability in-utero on health at birth. We exploit the coup d'état that took place in Spain on February 23, 1981. Although short-lived and unsuccessful, the event generated stress and fear among the population, especially in areas that had suffered more repression during the Civil War and the recent dictatorship. We follow a difference-in-differences strategy and compare birth outcomes before and after the coup, in areas that were differentially "affected". We find that children who were in utero during the coup in more affected areas were born with significantly lower birth-weight (around 9 g lighter), especially if they were exposed to the coup in the first or second trimester of pregnancy. We contribute to the literature on the effects of maternal stress by focusing on an acute (and relatively common) source of distress that is unlikely to have affected newborn health via other channels.
我们研究了子宫内暴露于政治不稳定对出生时健康的影响。我们利用了 1981 年 2 月 23 日在西班牙发生的政变。尽管这次政变时间短暂且失败了，但它在民众中引起了紧张和恐惧，尤其是在那些在内战和最近的独裁统治期间遭受更多镇压的地区。我们采用了双重差分策略，比较了政变前后在不同程度上“受到影响”的地区的出生结果。我们发现，在受影响更大的地区，子宫内暴露于政变的孩子出生体重明显较低（约轻 9 克），尤其是如果他们在妊娠的第一或第二个三个月暴露于政变。我们通过关注一种急性（且相对常见）的压力源，为关注母亲压力对新生儿健康影响的文献做出了贡献，这种压力源不太可能通过其他渠道影响新生儿的健康。
