Evidence on early-life income and late-life health from America's Dust Bowl era

Abstract

In recent decades, elderly Americans have enjoyed enormous gains in longevity and reductions in disability. The causes of this progress remain unclear, however. This paper investigates the role of fetal programming, exploring how economic progress early in the 20th century might be related to declining disability today. Specifically, we match sudden unexpected economic changes experienced in utero in America's Dust Bowl during the Great Depression to unusually detailed individual-level information about old-age disability and chronic disease. We are unable to detect any meaningful relationship between early life factors and outcomes in later life. We conclude that, if such a relationship exists in the United States, it is most likely not a quantitatively important explanation for declining disability today.

Fig. 1.

Regional variation in economic conditions around the time of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl. Values for the West North Central, East North Central, and West South Central regions, which generally suffered more severe shocks during the period of interest, are presented along with the average for all other regions. (a) Residual crop yields for the selected regions and the average for all other regions, weighted by each crop's value relative to the total harvest. Crops used are wheat, corn, tobacco, hay, oats, and cotton. See j for a more detailed description of how these residuals were calculated. Data are from the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service. (b) Personal income in the selected regions and the average in all other regions. These data are drawn from Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates and converted to constant 1983 dollars using the gross domestic product deflator. (c) Values for a nonagricultural employment index in the selected regions and the average in all other regions. These data come from Wallis (48) and provide a measure of employment during the period relative to each region's level in 1929.