Food Affordability and Double Catastrophe in Early Life: Lessons from the 1974–75 Bangladesh Famine*

Abstract

We study the educational outcomes of the 1974–75 Bangladesh famine among early life survivors using the 1991 Bangladesh micro-census data. We find that famine adversely affected survivor children in areas that experienced higher rice prices relative to labour wages. However, children living in wealthy households in famine-stricken areas escaped the adverse effects and had similar educational outcomes as those with no famine exposure. We also find that, surprisingly, exposure to a double catastrophe (i.e., concurrent famine and flood) in early life had weaker effects on survivor children's education than exposure to a single catastrophe. We show that disaster-alleviation mechanisms were more effective in districts affected by double disasters.