Long Term Consequences Of Early Childhood Malnutrition Harold Alderman, World Bank John Hoddinott, Dalhousie University and IFPRI Bill Kinsey, University of Zimbabwe and Free University, Amsterdam June 2002 Acknowledgements The authors thank Jere Behrman and Hanan Jacoby, as well as seminar participants at Dalhousie, IFPRI, McMaster, Oxford, Toronto and the World Bank for insightful comments on earlier drafts. We gratefully acknowledge funding for survey work from the British Developme nt Division in Central Africa, UNICEF, the former Ministry of Lands, Resettlement and Rural Development, Zimbabwe, FAO, the Nuffield Foundation, ODI, DfID, IFPRI, CSAE Oxford, the Free University, Amsterdam, the Research Board of the University of Zimbabwe and the World Bank. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent. JEL classification: I12; I20; O15 Key words: health; education; shocks; Zimbabwe Address for correspondence: John Hoddinott, International Food Policy Research Institute, 2033 K Street NW, Washington DC, 20006, USA. em:
[email protected] Long Term Consequences Of Early Childhood Malnutrition Abstract This paper explores the long-term consequences of shocks on children’s health and education using longitudinal data from rural Zimbabwe. We link exposure to the war preceding Zimbabwe’s independence and the 1982-84 drought to the health status of the children in our sample (as measured by their height-for-age in 1983, 1984 and 1987) and to their health and educational attainments as adolescents measured in 2000. Instrumental variables- maternal fixed effects estimates show a statistically significant relationship between height-for -age in children under 5 and height attained as a young adult, the number of grades of schooling completed and the age at which the child starts school.