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Seoul Journal of Economics
[ Article ]
Seoul Journal of Economics - Vol. 30, No. 4, pp.353-383
ISSN: 1225-0279 (Print)
Print publication date 30 Nov 2017
Received 24 Oct 2017 Revised 30 Oct 2017 Accepted 15 Nov 2017

Fetal Exposure to the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in Colonial Korea and Human Capital Development

Sok Chul Hong ; Yangkeun Yun
Sok Chul Hong, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Seoul National University, 1, Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea sokchul.hong@snu.ac.kr
Yangkeun Yun, Department of Economics, Seoul National University ygyoon330@snu.ac.kr

JEL Classification: I15, I25, N35

Abstract

The influenza pandemic of 1918 drastically affected colonial Korea infecting approximately 7.4 million people (44.3% of the total population) and killing approximately 140,000. This study examines the effect of fetal exposure to the pandemic on educational attainment, specifically, years of schooling and literacy among the 1910 to 1929 birth cohort found in the 1960 Korean population census. Using the difference-in-differences approach, we found that fetal exposure substantially deteriorated educational attainment particularly among those born in provinces severely affected by influenza.

Keywords:

1918 influenza pandemic, Fetal exposure, Colonial Korea, Educational attainment

Acknowledgments

We especially thank Chaisung Lim for motivating this research and providing data on influenza cases and deaths. We have benefited from comments and suggestions from the participants in SNU Economic History Workshop, Korean Economic History Society Meetings, and Korean Association of Applied Economics. Research reported in this article was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (NRF-2016S1A3A2924944), the Institute of Economic Research (Center for Distributive Justice) at Seoul National University, and Korean Studies Promotion Service of the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS-2014-KFR-123001).

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