Parental Investments During Labor Shocks: Evidence from Vietnam’s Marine Disaster

Abstract We examine the impacts of a marine environmental disaster on parents’ educational investments in the context of Vietnam. Previous research finds that the disaster caused a labor shock in the fishing industry, a primary source of income for workers in the area studied. Using administrative data and a difference-in-differences framework, we find that parents in affected provinces decreased educational investments by 29 % during the four years after the disaster. In households with male and female children of compulsory schooling age, we estimate that affected families spent approximately 5–6 % less on educational expenditures for girls than boys in affected provinces after the disaster.