ABSTRACT
The sinking of the South Korean ferry Sewol in April 2014 claimed a total of 304 lives. Among the victims were 250 students from Dan-won High School in the city of Ansan and 11 of their teachers. For the residents of Ansan, the tragedy marked the beginning of widespread psychological distress and overwhelming grief. Exploiting the disaster's quasi-experimental nature, we employ a difference-in-differences (DID) strategy to measure its impact on the academic performance of Ansan's high school students in 5 major subjects. Using peers from Ansan's neighboring cities as the control group, our results reveal that the disaster impaired performances particularly in mathematics and natural science, a finding that is more pronounced for female students. Our results highlight that it is of uttermost importance to provide comprehensive psychological support and interventions to traumatized students but also to the communities they live in to minimize adverse effects on educational attainment.
ABSTRACT
In June 2002, South Korea cohosted the 17th FIFA World Cup. Unexpected wins carried the Korean National Football Team to the semi-finals and sparked an unprecedented euphoria among Koreans. Die-hard fans and occasional football viewers, young and old, women and men flocked the streets side by side, cheered for their team, and partied through the nights. In the subsequent spring of 2003, the country experienced a temporary and significant increase in its fertility rate. Using a difference-in-differences design, we exploit the quasi-experimental nature of this episode to investigate the Beckerian trade-off between the quantity and quality of children born to parents in South Korea. Our results support the notion of an adverse effect on child quality. Students born approximately ten months after the World Cup tend to perform significantly worse in school. Moreover, our results uncover a hitherto overlooked aspect: the same students exhibit significantly higher degrees of mental wellbeing.
ABSTRACT
Almost all South Korean men serve in the country's armed forces for two years. In this paper, we investigate whether the military service affects the health of draftees. Using an event study design, we use the conscription years to identify the effect the military service has on soldiers' physical health as well as on their smoking and drinking behavior. Our results show that the compulsory military service has a strong and long-lasting negative effect on physical health. Moreover, people who are drafted into the armed forces are more likely to consume more alcohol and cigarettes even years after they are discharged. Our results are of great interest to decision-makers weighing the pros and cons of conscription armies: mandatory military service adversely affects the male labor force and exacerbates drinking and smoking behavior.
ABSTRACT
In spring 2015, the South Korean province of South Gyeongsang stopped providing free school lunches to primary and secondary school students while large portions of schools in other provinces continued to provide free lunches at school. After the provincial government faced strong opposition, South Gyeongsang reintroduced the free-school-lunch program the very next year. Using a difference-in-differences design, we exploit these policy changes to evaluate their impact on students' body mass index (BMI) and on a measure related to students' mental health status (MH). Our results show that the abolishment of free school lunches harmed (female) underweight students by causing additional weight losses of about 4.5 percent whereas the reintroduction of free school lunches led to an average weight loss of 2.1 percent among overweight students (both male and female). Moreover, the school lunch policy changes had significant impacts on our MH measure: crying without any reason increased when the free-school-lunch policy was abolished and it decreased when the policy was reintroduced. The results are of great interest to decision makers: introducing free school lunches helps to achieve healthier weights and decreases crying without any reason and as a result, benefits student welfare. Free-school-lunch policies, therefore, may provide simple and inexpensive means to improve the health and welfare of students.
