Speaker
Description
This paper explores the link between intergenerational education mobility
and climate shocks experienced by children at a young age. Although many
studies have looked at the impact of shocks such as drought, civil war, and rainfall
on various health outcomes, little research has been done on how climatic
shocks affect intergenerational mobility. Our findings show a strong correlation
between the education of parents and their children, and that this correlation
is affected by climate-related events that occur in a child’s early years. Specifically,
more rainfall leads to less intergenerational persistence, indicating that
increased precipitation results in an increase in household income that can improve
households’ investment in children’s education. Conversely, drought (dry
season) significantly increases intergenerational education persistence, and this
effect is gender-specific. We note a statistically significant interaction between
parents’ schooling and climate shocks experienced by their sons, indicating that
climate shocks experienced during childhood reinforce intergenerational educational
persistence between parents and their sons.
