IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/jafrec/v31y2022i5p487-510..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Bombs and Babies: Exposure to Terrorism and Fertility Choices in Nigeria

Author

Listed:
  • Valentina Rotondi
  • Michele Rocca

Abstract

The aim of terrorism all over the world is to have fear rule over people’s lives. The consequences of terrorist attacks, however, are substantially different across contexts. In this paper we study the association between exposure to Boko Haram’s attacks and households’ fertility choices in Nigeria. We hypothesise that households exposed to terrorism increase their number of children as a way to insure against future unexpected shocks. We test this hypothesis using geolocalised panel data linked to information on terrorist attacks that occurred in the region. Consistent with our hypothesis, terrorism is found to increase fertility (proxied by the number of surviving children per household): a one standard deviation increase in the number of fatalities increases the probability that a household hit by terrorism has a newborn by . This association is robust to the use of difference-in-differences and instrumental variables models—and therefore can be given a causal interpretation.

Suggested Citation

  • Valentina Rotondi & Michele Rocca, 2022. "Bombs and Babies: Exposure to Terrorism and Fertility Choices in Nigeria," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 31(5), pages 487-510.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jafrec:v:31:y:2022:i:5:p:487-510.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jae/ejab030
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Islam, Asadul & Ouch, Chandarany & Smyth, Russell & Wang, Liang Choon, 2016. "The long-term effects of civil conflicts on education, earnings, and fertility: Evidence from Cambodia," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 800-820.
    2. Del Carpio, Ximena V. & Loayza, Norman V. & Wada, Tomoko, 2016. "The Impact of Conditional Cash Transfers on the Amount and Type of Child Labor," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 33-47.
    3. Di Maio, Michele & Nisticò, Roberto, 2019. "The effect of parental job loss on child school dropout: Evidence from the Occupied Palestinian Territories," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    4. Bertoni, Eleonora & Di Maio, Michele & Molini, Vasco & Nisticò, Roberto, 2019. "Education is forbidden: The effect of the Boko Haram conflict on education in North-East Nigeria," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    5. Walter Enders & Todd Sandler & Khusrav Gaibulloev, 2011. "Domestic Versus Transnational Terrorism: Data, Decomposition, and Dynamics," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 48(3), pages 319-337, May.
    6. Joseph Rodgers & Craig John & Ronnie Coleman, 2005. "Did fertility go up after the oklahoma city bombing? An analysis of births in metropolitan counties in Oklahoma, 1990–1999," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 42(4), pages 675-692, November.
    7. Mian Hossain & James Phillips & Thomas Legrand, 2007. "The impact of childhood mortality on Fertility in six rural Thanas of Bangladesh," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 44(4), pages 771-784, November.
    8. Enders, Walter & Sandler, Todd, 2000. "Is Transnational Terrorism Becoming More Threatening? A Time-Series Investigation," Staff General Research Papers Archive 1823, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    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. Uchenna, Efobi & Joseph, Ajefu, 2024. "Exploring the Spillover Effects of Internally Displaced Settlements on the Wellbeing of Children of the Locales," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1381, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    2. Adelaja, Adesoji & George, Justin, 2024. "Terrorism and land use in agriculture: A response to a replication attempt and additional insights on replication guidelines," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).

    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. Kati Kraehnert & Tilman Brück & Michele Di Maio & Roberto Nisticò, 2019. "The Effects of Conflict on Fertility: Evidence From the Genocide in Rwanda," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(3), pages 935-968, June.
    2. Di Maio, Michele & Leone Sciabolazza, Valerio, 2023. "Conflict exposure and labour market outcomes: Evidence from longitudinal data for the Gaza Strip," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    3. Khusrav Gaibulloev & Todd Sandler, 2013. "Determinants of the Demise of Terrorist Organizations," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 79(4), pages 774-792, April.
    4. Hendrik Jürges & Luca Stella & Sameh Hallaq & Alexandra Schwarz, 2022. "Cohort at risk: long-term consequences of conflict for child school achievement," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(1), pages 1-43, January.
    5. Aaron Clauset & Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, 2012. "The Developmental Dynamics of Terrorist Organizations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(11), pages 1-11, November.
    6. Claude Berrebi & Jordan Ostwald, 2011. "Earthquakes, hurricanes, and terrorism: do natural disasters incite terror?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 383-403, December.
    7. James Piazza, 2011. "The illicit drug trade, counternarcotics strategies and terrorism," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 297-314, December.
    8. Ito, Takahiro & Li, Jia & Usoof-Thowfeek, Ramila & Yamazaki, Koji, 2024. "Educational consequences of firsthand exposure to armed conflict: The case of the Sri Lankan Civil War," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    9. Arindam Nandi & Sumit Mazumdar & Jere R. Behrman, 2018. "The effect of natural disaster on fertility, birth spacing, and child sex ratio: evidence from a major earthquake in India," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(1), pages 267-293, January.
    10. Michele Di Maio & Valerio Leone Sciabolazza, 2021. "Conflict exposure and health: Evidence from the Gaza Strip," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(9), pages 2287-2295, September.
    11. Marco Alfano & Joseph‐Simon Görlach, 2024. "Terrorism and education: Evidence from instrumental variables estimators," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(5), pages 906-925, August.
    12. Kollias, Christos & Kyrtsou, Catherine & Papadamou, Stephanos, 2013. "The effects of terrorism and war on the oil price–stock index relationship," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 743-752.
    13. Zhongbei Li & Xiangchun Li & Chen Dong & Fanfan Guo & Fan Zhang & Qi Zhang, 2021. "Quantitative Analysis of Global Terrorist Attacks Based on the Global Terrorism Database," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-19, July.
    14. Dominic Rohner, 2022. "Conflict, Civil Wars and Human Development," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 22.08, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    15. Daniel Arce & Sneha Bakshi & Rachel Croson & Catherine Eckel & Enrique Fatas & Malcolm Kass, 2011. "Counterterrorism strategies in the lab," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 465-478, December.
    16. S. Blomberg & Khusrav Gaibulloev & Todd Sandler, 2011. "Terrorist group survival: ideology, tactics, and base of operations," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 441-463, December.
    17. Martin Gassebner & Simon Luechinger, 2011. "Lock, stock, and barrel: a comprehensive assessment of the determinants of terror," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 235-261, December.
    18. Jenna Nobles & Elizabeth Frankenberg & Duncan Thomas, 2014. "The Effects of Mortality on Fertility: Population Dynamics after a Natural Disaster," NBER Working Papers 20448, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Claude Berrebi & Jordan Ostwald, 2011. "Earthquakes, hurricanes, and terrorism: do natural disasters incite terror?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 383-403, December.
    20. José Garcia Montalvo & Marta Reynal-Querol, 2018. "Earthquakes and terrorism: the long lasting effect of seismic shocks," Economics Working Papers 1599, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    terrorism; fertility; Boko Haram; Nigeria; JEL Classification: J13; I15; D19;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • D19 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Other

    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:oup:jafrec:v:31:y:2022:i:5:p:487-510.. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csaoxuk.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.