https://macropaperwarehouse.com/authors/n.-meltem-daysal/N. Meltem DaysalHugo -- gohugo.ioen-ushttps://macropaperwarehouse.com/papers/germs-in-the-family-the-short-and-long-term-consequences-of-intra-household-disease-spread/https://macropaperwarehouse.com/papers/germs-in-the-family-the-short-and-long-term-consequences-of-intra-household-disease-spread/<p>This paper studies the short- and long-term consequences of intra-household respiratory disease transmission from older to younger siblings in Danish families. The central research questions are: (1) how do respiratory illnesses spread from preschool-aged older siblings to younger infant siblings during the first year of life, and (2) how does respiratory disease exposure during infancy causally affect younger siblings&rsquo; long-term economic, human capital, and health outcomes?</p> <p>The study uses population-level Danish administrative data covering 1,230,180 children from 37 birth cohorts (1981–2017), linking records from the National Patient Register, income and labor market registers, education registers, and psychiatric care registers. The identification strategy combines birth order variation in respiratory disease vulnerability with within-municipality variation in local respiratory disease prevalence among children aged 13–71 months. The authors construct a municipality-level disease exposure index—cumulative respiratory hospitalizations per 100 children aged 13–71 months in a child&rsquo;s municipality over their first 12 months of life—and estimate the differential effect of this index on younger versus older siblings, controlling for municipality fixed effects, birth year-month fixed effects, and an extensive set of individual and family background characteristics.</p>