Unfortunate Moms and Unfortunate Children : Impact of the Nepali Civil War on Women's Stature and Intergenerational Health

This paper analyzes the long-term health impacts of Nepal's 1996-2006 civil conflict. It exploits the heterogeneity in conflict intensity across villages and birth cohorts to document long-term health and intergenerational impacts. The analysis finds that childhood exposure to conflict and, in particular, exposure starting in infancy, negatively impacts attained adult height. Each additional month of exposure decreases a women's adult height by 1.36 millimeters. The impacts are not limited to first-generation. The analysis also finds that a mother's exposure to conflict in her childhood is detrimental to her child's health. Mothers exposed to conflict during their childhood have more children and live in less wealthy households, likely reducing their ability to invest during their children?s critical period of physical development. The finding points to a potential trade-off between the quantity and quality of children. The paper uses information on monthly conflict incidents at the village level, which allows identifying identify the effects of exposure to conflict more accurately than prior studies.