IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/96712.html

Life After The Storm: The Effect of L’Aquila Earthquake on Marriage Rates

Author

Listed:
  • Cicatiello, Lorenzo
  • Ercolano, Salvatore
  • Gaeta, Giuseppe Lucio
  • Parenti, Benedetta

Abstract

Natural disasters represent a challenge for policy-makers both for the immediate aftermath and for the mid- and long-term consequences. Knowing the reaction of the struck communities is an invaluable help for planning and implementing informed policies. Embracing such a perspective, this paper aims to provide empirical evidence about the effect that natural disasters exert on the marriage rates reported by the struck communities. The analysis is focused on L’Aquila earthquake that occurred in 2009 and stroke a number of municipalities in the Abruzzo Region in Southern Italy. We exploit a natural experiment setting via a difference-in-differences design, using highly disaggregate data (municipality level) in order to assess whether the shock caused by the L’Aquila earthquake in 2009 resulted in a substantial variation of the marriage rate in the municipalities hit more severely by the natural disaster. We find that the municipalities that payed a higher toll show an increasing higher marriage rate with respect to those that did not experienced major damages.

Suggested Citation

  • Cicatiello, Lorenzo & Ercolano, Salvatore & Gaeta, Giuseppe Lucio & Parenti, Benedetta, 2019. "Life After The Storm: The Effect of L’Aquila Earthquake on Marriage Rates," MPRA Paper 96712, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Oct 2019.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:96712
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/96712/1/MPRA_paper_96712.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Florencia Torche, 2018. "Prenatal Exposure to an Acute Stressor and Children’s Cognitive Outcomes," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(5), pages 1611-1639, October.
    2. Finlay, Jocelyn E., 2009. "Fertility response to natural disasters : the case of three high mortality earthquakes," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4883, The World Bank.
    3. Florencia Torche, 2011. "The Effect of Maternal Stress on Birth Outcomes: Exploiting a Natural Experiment," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(4), pages 1473-1491, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anousheh Alamir & Tillmann Heidelk, 2020. "Natural Disasters and Education," Working Papers ECARES 2020-05, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.

    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. Tian, Xinping & Gong, Jinquan & Zhai, Zhe, 2022. "Natural disasters and human capital accumulation: Evidence from the 1976 Tangshan earthquake," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    2. Andrea Kutinova Menclova & Steven Stillman, 2020. "Maternal stress and birth outcomes: Evidence from an unexpected earthquake swarm," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(12), pages 1705-1720, December.
    3. Shreyasee Das & Shatanjaya Dasgupta, 2025. "Marriage Market Responses in the Wake of a Natural Disaster in India," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 20(1), pages 31-57, April.
    4. Noghanibehambari, Hamid, 2022. "In utero exposure to natural disasters and later-life mortality: Evidence from earthquakes in the early twentieth century," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 307(C).
    5. Berthelon, Matias & Kruger, Diana & Sanchez, Rafael, 2021. "Maternal stress during pregnancy and early childhood development," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    6. Diane Coffey & Ashwini Deshpande & Jeffrey Hammer & Dean Spears, 2019. "Local Social Inequality, Economic Inequality, and Disparities in Child Height in India," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(4), pages 1427-1452, August.
    7. Ceron, Francisco I. & Bol, Thijs & van de Werfhorst, Herman G., 2022. "The dynamics of achievement inequality: The role of performance and choice in Chile," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    8. Krzysztof Karbownik & Anthony Wray, 2019. "Long-Run Consequences of Exposure to Natural Disasters," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(3), pages 949-1007.
    9. Petra Persson & Maya Rossin-Slater, 2018. "Family Ruptures, Stress, and the Mental Health of the Next Generation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(4-5), pages 1214-1252, April.
    10. Jo Mhairi Hale, 2017. "Cognitive Disparities: The Impact of the Great Depression and Cumulative Inequality on Later-Life Cognitive Function," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(6), pages 2125-2158, December.
    11. von Hinke, Stephanie & Rice, Nigel & Tominey, Emma, 2022. "Mental health around pregnancy and child development from early childhood to adolescence," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    12. Zhong, Jingdong & Wang, Tianyi & He, Yang & Gao, Jingjing & Liu, Chengfang & Lai, Fang & Zhang, Liuxiu & Luo, Renfu, 2021. "Interrelationships of caregiver mental health, parenting practices, and child development in rural China," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    13. Tatyana Deryugina & David Molitor, 2020. "Does When You Die Depend on Where You Live? Evidence from Hurricane Katrina," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(11), pages 3602-3633, November.
    14. Carlson, Kyle, 2015. "Fear itself: The effects of distressing economic news on birth outcomes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 117-132.
    15. Elaine L. Hill, 2024. "The Impact of Oil and Gas Extraction on Infant Health," American Journal of Health Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 10(1), pages 68-96.
    16. Par, Tial Len & Ten, Gi Khan & Lee, Ju-Ho, 2022. "Early-life exposure to earthquakes and its long-term effects on human capital outcomes: The case of Myanmar," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    17. Hoa Vu, 2024. "I wish I were born in another time: Unintended consequences of immigration enforcement on birth outcomes," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(2), pages 345-362, February.
    18. Philipp Ager & Casper Worm Hansen & Lars Lønstrup, 2015. "Shaking up the Equilibrium: Natural Disasters, Immigration and Economic Geography," Discussion Papers 15-17, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    19. Ahammer, Alexander & Halla, Martin & Schneeweis, Nicole, 2020. "The effect of prenatal maternity leave on short and long-term child outcomes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    20. Bharati, Tushar, 2022. "The long shadow of the Kargil War: The effect of early-life stress on education," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 44(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    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:pra:mprapa:96712. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.