The Economic Consequences of Illness and Death in South Africa

Cally Ardington, University of Cape Town
Till Barnighausen, Harvard School of Public Health
Anne Case, Princeton University
Alicia Menendez, University of Chicago

Institutions, such as funerals, that develop over a long period of time may take time to adjust to a change as profound as the shift in the age-mortality profile that occurred in Southern Africa over the past fifteen years. As a result, households that bury members who die in middle age may find themselves less able to maintain a stock of productive assets, to stake migrants in urban areas until they find work, to finance schooling, and more broadly to provide a healthy environment within which to raise children. All these threaten household and individual wellbeing. To date, there has been little systematic evidence on the size of this effect. In this paper, we use longitudinal demographic and socioeconomic data collected in the Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies Demographic Surveillance Area between 2000 and 2010 to document the impact of household death on children’s outcomes.