Seminar: The persistence of early childhood shocks

This paper investigates the long term impact of early childhood circumstances on social and economic outcomes lasting almost 40 years. We exploit variation in childhood circumstances experienced by children and adolescents from Surinam who migrated to the Netherlands in two large waves, induced by political changes in the former Dutch colony. Administrative data allow us to link the age of migration to a large array of adult outcomes. Moreover, we are able to investigate the effects on the children of these migrants. We find that an increase in exposure to the living conditions in a relatively wealthy country improves economic and social assimilation as an adult. Moreover, we find that immigrants arriving at a young age have less children and postpone the age of having a first child. In addition, children of young arriving migrants have substantially higher test scores than children of migrants that arrive at a later age.