Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Olivier Dagnelie
Author-Name-First: Olivier
Author-Name-Last: Dagnelie
Author-Name: Giacomo De Luca
Author-Name-First: Giacomo
Author-Name-Last: De Luca
Author-Name: Jean-Francois Maystadt
Author-Name-First: Jean-Francois
Author-Name-Last: Maystadt
Title: Do girls pay the price of civil war?
Abstract: This paper documents the impact of civil wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo on infant mortality between 1997 and 2004. It adopts an instrumental variable approach to correct for the non-random timing and location of conflict. Strong and robust evidence, including mother fixed effects regressions, shows that conflict significantly increases girl mortality. It 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.
Creation-Date: 2014
File-URL: http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/media/lancaster-university/content-assets/documents/lums/economics/working-papers/PriceCivilWar.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
Number: 66401113
Classification-JEL: 
Keywords: Civil war, infant mortality, gender discrimination
Handle: RePEc:lan:wpaper:66401113