Worms at Work: Long-run Impacts of a Child Health Investment [report]

Sarah Baird, Joan Hamory Hicks, Michael Kremer, Edward Miguel
2015 unpublished
This study estimates long-run impacts of a child health investment, exploiting community-wide experimental variation in school-based deworming. The program increased labor supply among men and education among women, with accompanying shifts in labor market specialization. Ten years after deworming treatment, men who were eligible as boys stay enrolled for more years of primary school, work 17% more hours each week, spend more time in entrepreneurship, are more likely to hold manufacturing jobs,
more » ... and miss one fewer meal per week. Women who were eligible as girls are 25% more likely to have attended secondary school, halving the gender gap. They reallocate time from traditional agriculture into cash crops and entrepreneurship. We estimate an annualized financial internal rate of return to deworming of 32%, and show that mass deworming may generate more in future government revenue than it costs in subsidies.
doi:10.3386/w21428 fatcat:fckb6merzrc2doparp2qt7johy