Child Care and Human Development: Insights from Jewish History in Central and Eastern Europe, 1500-1930∗

Maristella Botticini; Zvi Eckstein; Anat Vaturi

doi:10.1093/ej/uez025

Child Care and Human Development: Insights from Jewish History in Central and Eastern Europe, 1500-1930∗

Maristella Botticini, Zvi Eckstein, Anat Vaturi

Department of Jewish History

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Economists increasingly highlight the role that human capital formation, institutions and cultural transmission may play in shaping health, knowledge and wealth. We study one of the most remarkable instances in which religious norms and childcare practices had a major impact: the history of the Jews in central and eastern Europe from 1500 to 1930. We show that while birth rates were about the same, infant and child mortality among Jews was much lower and accounted for the main difference in Jewish versus non-Jewish natural population growth. Jewish families routinely adopted childcare practices that recent medical research has shown as enhancing children's well-being.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	2637-2690
Number of pages	54
Journal	Economic Journal
Volume	129
Issue number	10
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/uez025
State	Published - 1 Oct 2019

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This article summarises the Economic Journal Lecture entitled ‘Nature or Nurture? Insights from Jewish History’ presented by Maristella Botticini at the 2018 Royal Economic Society conference at Sussex University. Two lengthy Appendices presenting detailed information on data collection and analysis are available on Zvi Eckstein’s website at http://www1.idc.ac.il/Faculty/Eckstein/jewish history 1500.html. We are grateful to Dima Kolotilenko and Stas Tarasov for their excellent research assistance in many tasks related to this project. We also thank Joachim Voth and an anonymous referee for their insightful remarks that greatly improved the article. We owe a lot to Tali Berner, Flavio Cunha, Sergio DellaPergola, Avner Greif, Judith Kalik, Jonathan Karp, Aviad Kleinberg, Joel Mokyr, Yochanan Petrovski-Stern, Moshe Rosman, Noga Rubin, Tamar Salmon-Mack, Merav Schnitzer, Shaul Stampfer, Adam Teller, Kenneth Wolpin and Dorota Żołądź-Strzelczyk for their generous advices and helpful comments. Financial support from the Israeli Science Foundation (grant no. 1401/2012) and the Pinhas Sapir Center for Development, Tel Aviv University, is gratefully acknowledged. The usual disclaimers apply.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Royal Economic Society.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Economics and Econometrics

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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Cite this

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abstract = "Economists increasingly highlight the role that human capital formation, institutions and cultural transmission may play in shaping health, knowledge and wealth. We study one of the most remarkable instances in which religious norms and childcare practices had a major impact: the history of the Jews in central and eastern Europe from 1500 to 1930. We show that while birth rates were about the same, infant and child mortality among Jews was much lower and accounted for the main difference in Jewish versus non-Jewish natural population growth. Jewish families routinely adopted childcare practices that recent medical research has shown as enhancing children's well-being.",

author = "Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein and Anat Vaturi",

note = "Funding Information: This article summarises the Economic Journal Lecture entitled {\textquoteleft}Nature or Nurture? Insights from Jewish History{\textquoteright} presented by Maristella Botticini at the 2018 Royal Economic Society conference at Sussex University. Two lengthy Appendices presenting detailed information on data collection and analysis are available on Zvi Eckstein{\textquoteright}s website at http://www1.idc.ac.il/Faculty/Eckstein/jewish history 1500.html. We are grateful to Dima Kolotilenko and Stas Tarasov for their excellent research assistance in many tasks related to this project. We also thank Joachim Voth and an anonymous referee for their insightful remarks that greatly improved the article. We owe a lot to Tali Berner, Flavio Cunha, Sergio DellaPergola, Avner Greif, Judith Kalik, Jonathan Karp, Aviad Kleinberg, Joel Mokyr, Yochanan Petrovski-Stern, Moshe Rosman, Noga Rubin, Tamar Salmon-Mack, Merav Schnitzer, Shaul Stampfer, Adam Teller, Kenneth Wolpin and Dorota {\.Z}o{\l}{\c a}d{\'z}-Strzelczyk for their generous advices and helpful comments. Financial support from the Israeli Science Foundation (grant no. 1401/2012) and the Pinhas Sapir Center for Development, Tel Aviv University, is gratefully acknowledged. The usual disclaimers apply. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2019 Royal Economic Society.",

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Child Care and Human Development: Insights from Jewish History in Central and Eastern Europe, 1500-1930∗

Abstract

Bibliographical note

ASJC Scopus subject areas

UN SDGs

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