School Closures during the 1918 Flu Pandemic

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ager, Philipp; Eriksson, Katherine; Karger, Ezra; Nencka, Peter; Thomasson, Melissa A.
• 署名单位: University of Mannheim; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; University of California System; University of California Davis; Stellenbosch University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Chicago; University System of Ohio; Miami University
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_01170
• 发表日期: 2024-01
• 页码: 266-276
• 关键词: influenza; interventions; absences

摘要

During the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic, many local authorities made the controversial decision to close schools. We use newly digitized data from newspaper archives on the length of school closures for 165 large U.S. cities during the 1918-1919 flu pandemic to assess the long-run consequences of closing schools on children. We find that the closures had no detectable impact on children's school attendance in 1920, nor on their educational attainment and adult labor market outcomes in 1940. We highlight important differences between the 1918-1919 and COVID-19 pandemics and caution against extrapolating from our null effects to modern-day settings.