IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp16592.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

School Closures, Mortality, and Human Capital: Evidence from the Universe of Closures during the 1918 Pandemic in Sweden

Author

Listed:
  • Dahl, Christian M.

    (University of Southern Denmark)

  • Hansen, Casper W.

    (University of Copenhagen)

  • Jensen, Peter S.

    (Linnaeus University)

  • Karlsson, Martin

    (University of Duisburg-Essen)

  • Kühnle, Daniel

    (University of Duisburg-Essen)

Abstract

This study examines the impact of primary-school closures during the 1918 Pandemic in Sweden on mortality and long-term outcomes of school children. Using the universe of death certificates from 1914-1920 and newly-collected data on school closures across 2,100 districts, we conduct high-frequency event studies at both weekly and daily intervals to show that schools closed in response to local surges in influenza deaths. Faster implementation of school closures significantly reduced peak mortality rates among primary-aged individuals. However, our long-run analysis of approximately 100,000 affected children per grade shows precisely estimated, minor and mostly insignificant effects on longevity, employment, and income.

Suggested Citation

  • Dahl, Christian M. & Hansen, Casper W. & Jensen, Peter S. & Karlsson, Martin & Kühnle, Daniel, 2023. "School Closures, Mortality, and Human Capital: Evidence from the Universe of Closures during the 1918 Pandemic in Sweden," IZA Discussion Papers 16592, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16592
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp16592.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anderson, Michael L, 2008. "Multiple Inference and Gender Differences in the Effects of Early Intervention: A Reevaluation of the Abecedarian, Perry Preschool, and Early Training Projects," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt15n8j26f, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    2. Aucejo, Esteban M. & Romano, Teresa Foy, 2016. "Assessing the effect of school days and absences on test score performance," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 70-87.
    3. Liu, Jing & Lee, Monica & Gershenson, Seth, 2021. "The short- and long-run impacts of secondary school absences," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    4. David Cutler & Angus Deaton & Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2006. "The Determinants of Mortality," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(3), pages 97-120, Summer.
    5. Anderson, Michael L., 2008. "Multiple Inference and Gender Differences in the Effects of Early Intervention: A Reevaluation of the Abecedarian, Perry Preschool, and Early Training Projects," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 103(484), pages 1481-1495.
    6. David Cutler & Grant Miller, 2005. "The role of public health improvements in health advances: The twentieth-century United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 42(1), pages 1-22, February.
    7. Christian M. Dahl & Torben S. D. Johansen & Emil N. S{o}rensen & Christian E. Westermann & Simon F. Wittrock, 2021. "Applications of Machine Learning in Document Digitisation," Papers 2102.03239, arXiv.org.
    8. Card, David, 2001. "Estimating the Return to Schooling: Progress on Some Persistent Econometric Problems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(5), pages 1127-1160, September.
    9. Rui Esteves & Kris James Mitchener & Peter Nencka & Melissa A. Thomasson, 2022. "Do Pandemics Change Healthcare? Evidence from the Great Influenza," NBER Working Papers 30643, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Rosenzweig, Mark R, 1995. "Why Are There Returns to Schooling?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 153-158, May.
    11. Enrico Berkes & Olivier Deschenes & Ruben Gaetani & Jeffrey Lin & Christopher Severen, 2020. "Lockdowns and Innovation: Evidence from the 1918 Flu Pandemic," NBER Working Papers 28152, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Joshua Goodman, 2014. "Flaking Out: Student Absences and Snow Days as Disruptions of Instructional Time," NBER Working Papers 20221, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Imbens,Guido W. & Rubin,Donald B., 2015. "Causal Inference for Statistics, Social, and Biomedical Sciences," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521885881.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sonia Bhalotra & Martin Karlsson & Therese Nilsson & Nina Schwarz, 2022. "Infant Health, Cognitive Performance, and Earnings: Evidence from Inception of the Welfare State in Sweden," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(6), pages 1138-1156, November.
    2. Derksen, Laura & Kerwin, Jason Theodore & Reynoso, Natalia Ordaz & Sterck, Olivier, 2021. "Appointments: A More Effective Commitment Device for Health Behaviors," SocArXiv y8gh7, Center for Open Science.
    3. Özler, Berk & Çelik, Çiğdem & Cunningham, Scott & Cuevas, P. Facundo & Parisotto, Luca, 2021. "Children on the move: Progressive redistribution of humanitarian cash transfers among refugees," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    4. Will Dobbie & Roland G. Fryer, Jr, 2009. "Are High Quality Schools Enough to Close the Achievement Gap? Evidence from a Social Experiment in Harlem," NBER Working Papers 15473, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Capuno, Joseph & Kraft, Aleli & O'Donnell, Owen, 2021. "Effectiveness of clinic-based cardiovascular disease prevention: A randomized encouragement design experiment in the Philippines," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 283(C).
    6. Hannes Schwandt, 2018. "Wealth Shocks and Health Outcomes: Evidence from Stock Market Fluctuations," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 349-377, October.
    7. Andrea La Nauze & Edson R. Severnini, 2021. "Air Pollution and Adult Cognition: Evidence from Brain Training," NBER Working Papers 28785, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Breda, Thomas & Grenet, Julien & Monnet, Marion & Van Effenterre, Clémentine, 2020. "Do Female Role Models Reduce the Gender Gap in Science? Evidence from French High Schools," IZA Discussion Papers 13163, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Gazeaud, Jules & Khan, Nausheen & Mvukiyehe, Eric & Sterck, Olivier, 2023. "With or without him? Experimental evidence on cash grants and gender-sensitive trainings in Tunisia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    10. Adjognon,Guigonan Serge & Nguyen Huy,Tung & Guthoff,Jonas Christoph & van Soest,Daan, 2022. "Incentivizing Social Learning for the Diffusion of Climate-Smart Agricultural Techniques," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10041, The World Bank.
    11. Takasaki, Yoshito, 2020. "Impacts of disability on poverty: Quasi-experimental evidence from landmine amputees in Cambodia," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 85-107.
    12. Siu, Jade & Sterck, Olivier & Rodgers, Cory, 2023. "The freedom to choose: Theory and quasi-experimental evidence on cash transfer restrictions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    13. Jones, Kelly & Gong, Erick, 2021. "Precautionary savings and shock-coping behaviors: Effects of promoting mobile bank savings on transactional sex in Kenya," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    14. Denny, Kevin & Doyle, Orla & McMullin, Patricia & O'Sullivan, Vincent, 2014. "Money, mentoring and making friends: The impact of a multidimensional access program on student performance," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 167-182.
    15. Zhuan Pei & Jörn-Steffen Pischke & Hannes Schwandt, 2019. "Poorly Measured Confounders are More Useful on the Left than on the Right," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 205-216, April.
    16. Jeffrey D. Michler & Anna Josephson, 2022. "Recent developments in inference: practicalities for applied economics," Chapters, in: A Modern Guide to Food Economics, chapter 11, pages 235-268, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Yoshito Takasaki, 2019. "Disability and Poverty: Landmine Amputees in Cambodia," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1118, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    18. Battistin, Erich & Meroni, Elena Claudia, 2016. "Should we increase instruction time in low achieving schools? Evidence from Southern Italy," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 39-56.
    19. Hilary Hoynes & Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach & Douglas Almond, 2016. "Long-Run Impacts of Childhood Access to the Safety Net," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(4), pages 903-934, April.
    20. Thomas Breda & Julien Grenet & Marion Monnet & Clémentine van Effenterre, 2023. "How Effective are Female Role Models in Steering Girls Towards Stem? Evidence from French High Schools," Post-Print hal-04012314, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    short- and long-run effects; human capital; mortality; 1918 Pandemic; school closures;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J10 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - General
    • N34 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: 1913-
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16592. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.