Research

Paper 1) Surviving the Great Divide: The Differential Buffering Effect of Social Capital on Parental Loss in the Era of Migration (Manuscript available on request)

Although adversities in early childhood are associated with excess child mortality and adverse health outcomes, there has been limited research on mitigating conditions that can attenuate the adverse health impacts. This study examines a particular adversity: the loss of a parent during early childhood, emphasizing the crucial role mothers play in survival. It highlights how social capital can buffer the negative impact of paternal loss to a greater extent than maternal loss on child survival in the United States between 1850 and 1950.
I use data from the genealogical database Familinx, matched to county-level geographical information to create indicators of community social capital and account for the role of family environment by conducting both sibling and cousins fixed effect models. The results show a significant gap in the magnitude of excess child mortality risk depending on whether the loss is paternal or maternal. While the effect of maternal bereavement (11%) is over twice as large as paternal bereavement (4%), social capital mainly buffers in the latter case. Independent of model specification, in high social capital contexts, the increased mortality risk following paternal loss is fully mitigated whereas the buffering effect of social capital is diluted in the case of maternal loss.

Paper 2) Kin Support and Child Mortality in the US (Manuscript available on request)

This study examines the essential roles of grandmothers and older siblings in influencing child survival. Grandmothers provide vital support through caregiving, nutrition, and reducing the demands on parents, which enhances child survival rates in both historical and modern contexts. The analysis also explores the role of older siblings, revealing that their impact on child mortality varies by gender, with older sisters potentially offering more protective benefits than older brothers. Using Familinx, a crowdsourced genealogical dataset, I investigate these dynamics within the historical context of the United States. The results indicate that maternal grandmothers are consistently associated with lower child mortality rates, with some evidence suggesting a similar effect from maternal grandfathers. In contrast, the presence of older siblings does not appear to protect against mortality; rather, having more siblings—whether older or younger—is linked to higher mortality rates. Furthermore, the analysis of buffering mechanisms reveals that maternal grandmothers mitigate the effects of a mother’s loss, while older siblings mainly buffer child mortality after infancy.

Paper 3) Multigenerational Human Capital Transmission: How Grandparents Drive Cognitive Development Across Generations  (preprint available here) - Co-authored with Ismael G. Muñoz & Alberto Palloni.

Do grandparents continue to play a vital role in their grandchildren’s lives even in societies where child health is no longer a primary concern? This study explores how the involvement of grandparents, traditionally associated with reproductive success, has evolved to support human capital formation. Drawing on the human capital framework, we rigorously model both grandparental and parental investments, examining their joint effects on cognitive development over time. Additionally, we explore how early health status and cognitive abilities may influence subsequent investments. Using longitudinal data from the Young Lives study, which tracks children in Ethiopia, India, Vietnam, and Peru, we model the joint effect of support from grandparents and parental investments on children’s cognitive ability. We find that early childhood investments have a lasting impact on developmental outcomes. Our results demonstrate that grandparents’ involvement significantly enhances cognitive development in early childhood, with effects reaching nearly half the magnitude of parental investments. Moreover, these early influences indirectly shape cognitive outcomes later in childhood. Notably, their contribution amounts to half a year of schooling indirectly in Ethiopia, one-quarter in India, and around one month in Peru and Vietnam. 

• Palloni, A. & Lund, M. B., Bereavement Effects in the Past

• Suarez Vergne, A., Cebolla-Boado, H., Lund, M. B., & Serrano Sanguilinda, I. The Tipping Point of Intolerance: Far-Right Elections and Terrorist Attacks as Catalysts for Anti-Muslim Hate Crime in Europe

• Muñoz, I. Lund, M. B., Sørensen, T., Palloni, A. Feeding the Crisis: US County-Level Influence of Food Insecurity on Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, and Mortality