The Long Arm of Conflict: How Timing Shapes the Impact of Childhood Exposure to War

Abstract

This paper examines how the timing of childhood exposure to armed conflict influences both the magnitude of the impact it has on later-life health and the pathways through which those impacts manifest. Utilizing the Survey of Health and Retirement in Europe, we examine cohorts of children during World War II. We find that cohorts born during the war show the largest negative effects of exposure on health in later life. The pathways also vary the timing of exposure. Consistent with a latent critical period process, children born during the war experienced increased risk of poor health and illness in childhood, as well as adult cardiometabolic conditions and poor functional health. Conversely, cohorts born before the war experienced more indirect pathways consistent with cumulative disadvantage processes and institutional breakdown. These pathways include stunted socioeconomic attainment, increased risk behaviors, and poorer mental health. Overall, this study emphasizes that the timing of exposure is critical to understanding the long-term health effects of war.

Keywords: Developmental origins of health and disease; Early life; Health; Life course; War.