Childhood health and sibling outcomes: Nurture Reinforcing nature during the 1918 influenza pandemic

This paper uses the 1918 influenza pandemic to test how household resources are reallocated in response to a health shock to one child. Using a new dataset linking census data on childhood household characteristics to adult outcomes from military enlistment records, I show that families with a child in utero during the pandemic shifted resources to the child's older siblings, leading to significantly higher educational attainments for these older siblings. These results suggest that the reallocation of household resources in response to a negative childhood health shock tended to reinforce rather than compensate for differences in endowments across children.

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