The effects of growing-season drought on young adult women’s life course transitions

• In Event: 1532 - Population and the Environment

Abstract

Although climatic shocks have important impacts on demographic processes, there is little work on how shocks impact life course transitions among young people in low-income rural contexts. This paper explores the effects of plausibly exogenous drought-related climatic shocks on young adult women’s life-course transitions in Malawi by combining repeated cross-sections of geo-referenced Malawi Demographic and Health Survey data with an improved georeferenced measure of drought shocks. Discrete-time event history analyses indicate that exposure to drought in adolescence has an accelerating effect on young adult women’s transitions into first unions and first births. Drought exposure also increases the probability of having sex in exchange for cash/goods and of partnering with less educated men, which suggests drought impacts partnership quality as well.

Authors

• Julia A Behrman, Northwestern University

• Liliana Andriano, Oxford