The Consequences of Child Soldiering
Open accessAbstract
Little is known about the impacts of military service on human capital and labor market outcomes due to an absence of data as well as sample selection: recruits are self-selected, screened, and selectively survive. We examine the case of Uganda, where rebel recruitment methods provide exogenous variation in conscription. Economic and educational impacts are widespread and persistent: schooling falls by nearly a year, skilled employment halves, and earnings drop by a third. Military service seems to be a poor substitute for schooling. Psychological distress is evident among those exposed to severe war violence and is not limited to ex-combatants.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Civil wars expose participants and victims to long-term harm in terms of educational achievement, employment, and physical and psychological health.
“At the individual level, civil wars expose participants and victims to long-term harm in terms of educational achievement, employment, and physical and psychological health (Blattman and Annan 2010; Canetti-Nisim et al. 2009).”
From Dynamics and Logics of Civil War (2017) · cites this paper as Blattman and Annan 2010
Cites
Sample Selection Bias as a Specification Error
Heckman, J. J. (1979) · Econometrica · doi:10.2307/1912352 · Cited by 28,779 · see citing works
Psychometric properties of the Beck Depression Inventory: Twenty-five years of evaluation
Beck, A. T., Steer, R. A., & Carbin, M. G. (1988) · Clinical Psychology Review · doi:10.1016/0272-7358(88)90050-5 · Cited by 11,696 · see citing works
Estimating causal effects of treatments in randomized and nonrandomized studies
Rubin, D. B. (1974) · Journal of Educational Psychology · doi:10.1037/h0037350 · Cited by 9,436 · see citing works
Does Conflict Beget Conflict? Explaining Recurring Civil War
Walter, B. F. (2004) · Journal of Peace Research · doi:10.1177/0022343304043775 · Cited by 690 · see citing works
Lost but Not Forgotten: Attrition and Follow-up in the Indonesia Family Life Survey
Thomas, D., Frankenberg, E., & Smith, J. P. (2001) · The Journal of Human Resources · doi:10.2307/3069630 · Cited by 200 · see citing works
Measuring Trauma and Health Status in Refugees: A Critical Review
Hollifield, M., Warner, T. D., Lian, N., Krakow, B., Jenkins, J. H., Kesler, J., Stevenson, J., & Westermeyer, J. (2002) · JAMA · doi:10.1001/jama.288.5.611 · Cited by 60 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
The Social Processes of Civil War: The Wartime Transformation of Social Networks
Wood, E. J. (2008) · Annual Review of Political Science · doi:10.1146/annurev.polisci.8.082103.104832 · Cited by 668 · see citing works
Seeds of distrust: conflict in Uganda
Rohner, D., Thoenig, M., & Zilibotti, F. (2013) · Journal of Economic Growth · doi:10.1007/s10887-013-9093-1 · Cited by 371 · see citing works
Betancourt, T. S., Borisova, I. I., Williams, T. P., Brennan, R. T., Whitfield, T. H., De La Soudiere, M., Williamson, J., & Gilman, S. E. (2010) · Child Development · doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01455.x · Cited by 269 · see citing works
Betancourt, T. S., Brennan, R. T., Rubin-Smith, J., Fitzmaurice, G. M., & Gilman, S. E. (2010) · Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.jaac.2010.03.008 · Cited by 240 · see citing works
Dynamics and Logics of Civil War
Cederman, L.-E., & Vogt, M. (2017) · Journal of Conflict Resolution · doi:10.1177/0022002717721385 · Cited by 205 · see citing works
Reconciling after civil conflict increases social capital but decreases individual well-being
Cilliers, J., Dube, O., & Siddiqi, B. (2016) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aad9682 · Cited by 152 · see citing works
Violent conflict and gender inequality: an overview
Buvinic, M., Das Gupta, M., Casabonne, U., & Verwimp, P. (2013) · The World Bank Research Observer · doi:10.1093/wbro/lks011 · Cited by 140 · see citing works
Evaluating the scope and intensity of the conflict trap
Hegre, H., Nygård, H. M., & Ræder, R. F. (2017) · Journal of Peace Research · doi:10.1177/0022343316684917 · Cited by 66 · see citing works
- Authors
- Blattman, C., & Annan, J.
- Affiliations
- Yale University (US)
- Venue
- Review of Economics and Statistics
- Publisher
- MIT Press
- Published
- 2010-11
- Volume
- 92
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 882-898
- ISSN
- 0034-6535 (ISSN-L)
- 1530-9142
- OpenAlex
- W2170573967
- Cited by
- 517
- References
- 6
- Citations by year
- 2026: 20 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 22 · 2020: 39 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 23 · 2017: 25 · 2016: 28 · 2015: 40 · 2014: 38 · 2013: 55 · 2012: 44
- FWCI
- 152.81
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- The Review of Economics and Statistics (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Columbia Academic Commons (Columbia University)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Conflict and Governance
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Defense, Military, and Policy Studies
- Keywords
- child soldiers, military service, human capital, labor market outcomes, school education, earnings, skilled employment, war violence, psychological distress, rebel recruitment, ex-combatants, Uganda
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
