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Do girls pay the price of civil war? Violence and infant mortality in Congo

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  • Olivier Dagnelie
  • Giacomo De Luca
  • Jean-Francois Maystadt

Abstract

Civil wars inflict considerable development costs. Understanding the relative fragility of certain segments of the population is a necessary condition to build resilience to ongoing and future violence outbreaks. This paper documents the impact of the violent civil war affecting the Democratic Republic of Congo in the period 1997–2004 on infant mortality. It adopts an instrumental variable approach to correct for the nonrandom timing and location of conflict events using mineral price index variations by district, taking account of the mineral locations and prices, as instrument. Strong and robust evidence, including mother fixed effects regressions comparing siblings, shows that conflict significantly increases girl mortality. The paper also examines the mechanisms explaining this phenomenon, with a focus on disentangling the behavioral from the biological factors. The analysis suggests that gender imbalances in infant mortality are driven by the selection induced by a higher vulnerability of boys in utero rather than by gender discrimination.

Suggested Citation

  • Olivier Dagnelie & Giacomo De Luca & Jean-Francois Maystadt, 2014. "Do girls pay the price of civil war? Violence and infant mortality in Congo," Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven 490852, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven.
    • Handle: RePEc:ete:ceswps:490852
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    2. Habtamu Beshir & Jean-Francois Maystadt, 2016. "In utero seasonal food insecurity and cognitive development: Evidence from Ethiopia," Working Papers 157856919, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    3. Olivia Bertelli, 2015. "The more the merrier? Adjusting fertility to weather shocks," Working Papers halshs-01226421, HAL.
    4. Bundervoet, Tom & Fransen, Sonja, 2018. "The educational impact of shocks in utero: Evidence from Rwanda," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 88-101.

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