The Long-Run Consequences of Parental Death

This paper analyzes the causal relationship between parental death during childhood and long-run labor market outcomes by examining the 1853 New Orleans yellow fever epidemic as a natural experiment. In 1853, nearly 8,000 New Orleanians died of yellow fever, leaving many broken families and orphaned children behind. Because yellow fever was spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito,neighboring New Orleanians faced similar risk of contracting yellow fever conditional on nativity and race (the main determinants of yellow fever susceptibility). I link death records from the 1853 yellow fever epidemic to the 1850 Census. I then link children who lost an adult household member and children in neighboring families to the 1880 Census. The results indicate that parental death during childhood lowered the probability of entering white collar occupations (professionals and managers) and increased the probability of entering unskilled occupations or reporting occupational non-response