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The effects of growing-season drought on young adult women’s life course transitions in Malawi
Liliana Andriano, Julia Behrman

##manager.scheduler.building##: Velodromo - Bocconi University
##manager.scheduler.room##: N06
Date: 2019-01-25 02:00 PM – 03:30 PM
Last modified: 2018-12-26

Abstract


Climatic shocks have important impacts on demographic processes, although there is considerably less work on how shocks impact life course transitions among young people in low-income rural contexts that are highly vulnerable to climatic shocks. 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 (DHS) data with an improved georeferenced measure of drought shocks which considers climate indicators other than just precipitation. Results from a discrete-time-event history analysis indicate that growing season drought increases young adult women’s transitions into first marriage and first birth. Furthermore, drought increases the probability of transactional sex, which suggests that accelerated life course transitions may be related to exchange of resources. Our analysis demonstrates the importance of focusing on young women’s life course transitions to fully understand the demographic impact of climatic shocks.

Keywords


drought, climate shocks, marriage, fertility, Africa