The Long-Run Effects of Prohibition on Child Outcomes

Kasey Buckles, University of Notre Dame
Joseph P. Price, Brigham Young University

Advocates for alcohol prohibition policies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries frequently cited the harms that alcohol and the saloon culture had on children. However, we know little about the long-run effects of prohibition on children exposed to these policies. In this paper, we use data from the Census Tree to estimate the effects of childhood exposure to alcohol prohibition policies on labor market and human capital outcomes in the 1940 census. We exploit state- and county-level variation in prohibition policy between 1885 and 1920, before the enactment of national prohibition. Using a sample of over 36 million children from the 1900-1920 censuses, we show that children who were fully exposed to a prohibition environment before age 15 have higher educational attainment and were 1.7 percentage points (4.7%) more likely to complete high school. We also find that girls who were exposed to prohibition were more likely to be in the labor force as adults. We supplement this analysis with data on death dates from genealogy records, and show that prohibition increased lifespans for those who were fully treated throughout childhood by about one-third of a year. This result is stronger for men, and is driven by higher probabilities of survival to later ages.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 130. Children's Health and the State