Long‐Run Health Repercussions of Drought Shocks: Evidence from South African Homelands

I present new evidence from Africa that droughts are an important component of long‐run variation in health human capital. Using Census data, I estimate effects of early childhood drought exposure on later‐life disabilities among South Africans confined to homelands during apartheid. By exploiting 40 years of quasi‐random variation in local droughts experienced by different cohorts in different districts, I find that drought exposure in infancy raises later‐life disability rates by 3.5–5.2%, with effects concentrated in physical and mental disabilities, and largest for males. My findings are relevant for low‐income settings where avoiding droughts through migration is costly.