Power Outages, Power Externalities, and Baby Booms

Author:

Burlando Alfredo1

Affiliation:

1. Department of Economics, University of Oregon, 1285 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA

Abstract

Abstract Determining whether power outages have significant fertility effects is an important policy question in developing countries, where blackouts are common and modern forms of family planning are scarce. Using birth records from Zanzibar, this study shows that a month-long blackout in 2008 caused a significant increase in the number of births 8 to 10 months later. The increase was similar across villages that had electricity, regardless of the level of electrification; villages with no electricity connections saw no changes in birth numbers. The large fertility increase in communities with very low levels of electricity suggests that the outage affected the fertility of households not connected to the grid through some spillover effect. Whether the baby boom is likely to translate to a permanent increase in the population remains unclear, but this article highlights an important hidden consequence of power instability in developing countries. It also suggests that electricity imposes significant externality effects on rural populations that have little exposure to it.

Publisher

Duke University Press

Subject

Demography

Reference22 articles.

1. Electric infrastructure failures in Nigeria: A survey-based analysis of the costs and adjustment responses;Adenikinju;Energy Policy,2003

2. BBC World Service. (2008, May 30). Melting in Zanzibar’s blackout. BBC News. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7427957.stm

3. BBC World Service. (2009, March 11). Uganda blackouts “fuel baby boom.” BBC News. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7939534.stm

4. BBC World Service. (2012, August 1). Power restored after huge Indian power cut. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-19071383

5. Transitory shocks and birth weights: Evidence from a blackout in Zanzibar;Burlando;Journal of Development Economics,2014

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