【Brownbag】Natural Disaster and Intergenerational Occupational Choices: Evidence from the US Dust Bowl
2025/08/08
研討會日期 : 2025-08-08
時間 : 12:10
主講人 : Professor Jhih-Yun Liu (劉致筠)
地點 : Conference Room B110
演講者簡介 : Professor Jhih-Yun Liu received her Ph.D. in Applied Economics from the University of Minnesota in 2024. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut. Her research fields are Agricultural and Resource Economics, Labor Economics, Demographic Economics, and Economic History.
演講摘要 : This paper examines how a natural disaster affects intergenerational occupational choices, focusing on children of Dust Bowl–affected farmers. Using individual-level full-count US census data, I find that the Dust Bowl decreases occupational persistence in agriculture, even as the parent generation continues to farm. Children of farmers are 21% less likely to become self-employed farmers and 10% more likely to work as wage-paid farmers after the Dust Bowl. Cohort analysis shows that younger cohorts with Dust Bowl–affected farmer parents are more likely to exit farming and earn higher incomes. Migration, schooling, and farm collapse are potential mechanisms. The findings show how an environmental shock can reshape labor outcomes across generations and unintentionally drive structural transformation of the US economy away from agriculture during the mid-20th century.
