IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jhecon/v30y2011i6p1246-1260.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Long-term health effects on the next generation of Ramadan fasting during pregnancy

Author

Listed:
  • van Ewijk, Reyn

Abstract

Each year, many pregnant Muslim women fast during Ramadan. Using Indonesian cross-sectional data and building upon work of Almond and Mazumder (2011), I show that people who were prenatally exposed to Ramadan fasting have a poorer general health than others. As predicted by medical theory, this effect is especially pronounced among older people, who also more often report symptoms indicative of coronary heart problems and type 2 diabetes. Among exposed Muslims the share of males is lower, which is most likely caused by death before birth. I show that these effects are unlikely the result of common health shocks correlated to the occurrence of Ramadan, or of fasting mainly occurring among women who would have had unhealthier children anyway.

Suggested Citation

  • van Ewijk, Reyn, 2011. "Long-term health effects on the next generation of Ramadan fasting during pregnancy," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 1246-1260.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:30:y:2011:i:6:p:1246-1260
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2011.07.014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167629611001081
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jhealeco.2011.07.014?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Douglas Almond & Bhashkar Mazumder, 2008. "Health Capital and the Prenatal Environment: The Effect of Maternal Fasting During Pregnancy," NBER Working Papers 14428, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Lindeboom, Maarten & van Doorslaer, Eddy, 2004. "Cut-point shift and index shift in self-reported health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 1083-1099, November.
    3. Janet Currie & Mark Stabile & Phongsack Manivong & Leslie L. Roos, 2010. "Child Health and Young Adult Outcomes," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 45(3).
    4. Douglas Almond & Bhashkar Mazumder, 2008. "The effects of maternal fasting during Ramadan on birth and adult outcomes," Working Paper Series WP-07-22, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    5. Douglas Almond & Bhashkar Mazumder, 2011. "Health Capital and the Prenatal Environment: The Effect of Ramadan Observance during Pregnancy," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 56-85, October.
    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. Schultz-Nielsen, Marie Louise & Tekin, Erdal & Greve, Jane, 2016. "Labor market effects of intrauterine exposure to nutritional deficiency: Evidence from administrative data on Muslim immigrants in Denmark," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 196-209.
    2. Sarah R. Cohodes & Daniel S. Grossman & Samuel A. Kleiner & Michael F. Lovenheim, 2016. "The Effect of Child Health Insurance Access on Schooling: Evidence from Public Insurance Expansions," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 51(3), pages 727-759.
    3. Lisa Schulkind, 2017. "Getting a Sporting Chance: Title IX and the Intergenerational Transmission of Health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(12), pages 1583-1600, December.
    4. Gabriella Conti, 2013. "The Developmental Origins of Health Inequality," Research on Economic Inequality, in: Health and Inequality, volume 21, pages 285-309, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    5. David Johnston & Carol Propper & Stephen Pudney & Michael Shields, 2014. "Child Mental Health And Educational Attainment: Multiple Observers And The Measurement Error Problem," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(6), pages 880-900, September.
    6. Daniel Auer & Johannes S. Kunz, 2021. "Communication Barriers and Infant Health: Intergenerational Effects of Randomly Allocating Refugees Across Language Regions," Papers 2021-05, Centre for Health Economics, Monash University.
    7. Cuevas Ruiz, Pilar & Borra, Cristina & Sevilla, Almudena, 2023. "The causal impact of maternal educational curricula on infant health at birth," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121334, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Kim, Seonghoon & Deng, Quheng & Fleisher, Belton M. & Li, Shi, 2014. "The Lasting Impact of Parental Early Life Malnutrition on Their Offspring: Evidence from the China Great Leap Forward Famine," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 232-242.
    9. Almond, Douglas & Currie, Janet, 2011. "Human Capital Development before Age Five," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 15, pages 1315-1486, Elsevier.
    10. Sotomayor, Orlando, 2013. "Fetal and infant origins of diabetes and ill health: Evidence from Puerto Rico's 1928 and 1932 hurricanes," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 281-293.
    11. Møllegaard, Stine, 2020. "The effect of birth weight on behavioral problems in early adolescence: New evidence from monozygotic twins," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).
    12. Johnson, Eric & Reynolds, C. Lockwood, 2013. "The effect of household hospitalizations on the educational attainment of youth," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 165-182.
    13. Kim, Albert Young-Il & Lee, Jungmin, 2017. "Does Single Motherhood Hurt Infant Health among Young Mothers?," IZA Discussion Papers 10592, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Tommaso Colussi & Ingo E. Isphording & Nico Pestel, 2021. "Minority Salience and Political Extremism," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 237-271, July.
    15. Mozhaeva, Irina, 2022. "Inequalities in utilization of institutional care among older people in Estonia," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(7), pages 704-714.
    16. Ruth Hancock & Marcello Morciano & Stephen Pudney & Francesca Zantomio, 2015. "Do household surveys give a coherent view of disability benefit targeting?: a multisurvey latent variable analysis for the older population in Great Britain," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 178(4), pages 815-836, October.
    17. Verónica Amarante & Marco Manacorda & Edward Miguel & Andrea Vigorito, 2016. "Do Cash Transfers Improve Birth Outcomes? Evidence from Matched Vital Statistics, Program, and Social Security Data," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 8(2), pages 1-43, May.
    18. Hope Corman & Dhaval Dave & Nancy E. Reichman, 2018. "Evolution of the Infant Health Production Function," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(1), pages 6-47, July.
    19. Vikesh Amin & Jere R. Behrman & Jason M. Fletcher & Carlos A. Flores & Alfonso Flores‐Lagunes & Hans‐Peter Kohler, 2021. "Genetic risks, adolescent health, and schooling attainment," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(11), pages 2905-2920, November.
    20. Jürges, Hendrik, 2015. "Ramadan fasting, sex-ratio at birth, and birth weight: No effects on Muslim infants born in Germany," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 13-16.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Ramadan; Pregnancy; Nutrition; Prenatal exposure; Fetal origins;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination

    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:eee:jhecon:v:30:y:2011:i:6:p:1246-1260. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505560 .

    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.