Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Content
    • Current
    • Ahead of print
    • Archive
    • Supplementary Material
    • Free Issue
    • Special Issues
  • Info for
    • Authors
    • Subscribers
    • Institutions
    • Advertisers
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Editorial Board
  • Connect
    • Feedback
    • Help
    • Request JHR at your library
    • Alerts
  • Announcements
  • Special Issue
  • Other Publications
    • UW Press Journals

User menu

  • Register
  • Subscribe
  • My alerts
  • Log in
  • My Cart

Search

  • Advanced search
Journal of Human Resources
  • Other Publications
    • UW Press Journals
  • Register
  • Subscribe
  • My alerts
  • Log in
  • My Cart
Journal of Human Resources

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Content
    • Current
    • Ahead of print
    • Archive
    • Supplementary Material
    • Free Issue
    • Special Issues
  • Info for
    • Authors
    • Subscribers
    • Institutions
    • Advertisers
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Editorial Board
  • Connect
    • Feedback
    • Help
    • Request JHR at your library
    • Alerts
  • Announcements
  • Special Issue
  • Follow uwp on Twitter
  • Follow JHR on Bluesky
Research ArticleArticles

A Mighty Toll

Mine Accidents and the Long-Run Effect of Losing a Father Among Sons

Ezra G. Goldstein
Published online before print January 08, 2025, 0922-12547R2; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.0922-12547R2
Ezra G. Goldstein
School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: ezggoldstein{at}gmail.com
  • Article
  • Figures & Data
  • Supplemental
  • Info & Metrics
  • References
  • PDF
Loading

References

    1. Abramitzky, R.,
    2. L. Boustan,
    3. K. Eriksson,
    4. J. Feigenbaum, and
    5. S. Pérez
    (2021). Automated linking of historical data. Journal of Economic Literature 59(3), 865–918.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
    1. Adams, W. W.,
    2. L. Chenoweth, and
    3. L. E. Geyer
    (1932). Coal-mine accidents in the United States; 1930. U.S. Gov. Printing Office.
    1. Adda, J.,
    2. A. Björklund, and
    3. H. Holmlund
    (2011). The Role of Mothers and Fathers in Providing Skills: Evidence from Parental Deaths. IZA Discussion Papers (5425).
    1. Amato, P. R.
    (2000). The consequences of divorce for adults and children. Journal of marriage and family 62(4), 1269–1287.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
    1. Amato, P. R. and
    2. C. J. Anthony
    (2014). Estimating the effects of parental divorce and death with fixed effects models. Journal of Marriage and Family 76(2), 370–386.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
    1. Andrabi, T.,
    2. B. Daniels, and
    3. J. Das
    (2021). Human capital accumulation and disasters: Evidence from the pakistan earthquake of 2005. Journal of Human Resources, 0520–10887R1.
    1. Bailey, M.,
    2. C. Cole, and
    3. C. Massey
    (2020). Simple strategies for improving inference with linked data: A case study of the 1850–1930 ipums linked representative historical samples. Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 53(2), 80–93.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
    1. Bailey, M. J.,
    2. C. Cole,
    3. M. Henderson, and
    4. C. Massey
    (2020, December). How well do automated linking methods perform? lessons from us historical data. Journal of Economic Literature 58(4), 997–1044.
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
    1. Bailey, M. J. and
    2. W. J. Collins
    (2006). The wage gains of african-american women in the 1940s. The Journal of Economic History 66(3), 737–777.
    OpenUrl
    1. Beegle, K.,
    2. J. De Weerdt, and
    3. S. Dercon
    (2010). Orphanhood and human capital destruction: Is there persistence into adulthood? Demography 47(1), 163–180.
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMedWeb of Science
    1. Berg, L.,
    2. M. Rostila, and
    3. A. Hjern
    (2016). Parental death during childhood and depression in young adults–a national cohort study. Journal of child psychology and psychiatry 57(9), 1092–1098.
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
    1. Berkes, E.,
    2. E. Karger, and
    3. P. Nencka
    (2023). The census place project: A method for geolocating unstructured place names. Explorations in Economic History 87, 101477. Methodological Advances in the Extraction and Analysis of Historical Data.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
    1. Bloome, D.
    (2017). Childhood Family Structure and Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States. Demography 54(2), 541–569.
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
    1. Böckerman, P.,
    2. M. Haapanen, and
    3. C. Jepsen
    (2023). Dark passage: Mental health consequences of parental death. American Journal of Health Economics.
    1. Brophy, J.
    (1964). A Miner’s Life. University of Wisconsin Press.
    1. Cameron, A. C.,
    2. J. B. Gelbach, and
    3. D. L. Miller
    (2008). Bootstrap-based improvements for inference with clustered errors. The Review of Economics and Statistics 90(3), 414–427.
    OpenUrlCrossRefWeb of Science
    1. Cas, A. G.,
    2. E. Frankenberg,
    3. W. Suriastini, and
    4. D. Thomas
    (2014). The impact of parental death on child well-being: evidence from the indian ocean tsunami. Demography 51(2), 437–457.
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
    1. Case, A. and
    2. C. Ardington
    (2006). The impact of parental death on school outcomes: Longitudinal evidence from south africa. Demography 43(3), 401–420.
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMedWeb of Science
    1. Case, A.,
    2. C. Paxson, and
    3. J. Ableidinger
    (2004). Orphans in africa: Parental death, poverty, and school enrollment. Demography 41(3), 483–508.
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMedWeb of Science
  1. Census Bureau (1940). Instructions to enumerators, population and agriculture, 1940. 1940 Census Publications Form PA-1.
  2. Census Bureau (1946). Population: Internal Migration 1935 to 1940. United States Government Printing Office.
    1. Chen, S. H.,
    2. Y.-C. Chen, and
    3. J.-T. Liu
    (2009). The impact of unexpected maternal death on education: First evidence from three national administrative data links. American Economic Review: Papers & Proceedings 99(2), 149–53.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
    1. Chetty, R.,
    2. A. Looney, and
    3. K. Kroft
    (2009). Salience and taxation: Theory and evidence. American economic review 99(4), 1145–77.
    OpenUrlCrossRefWeb of Science
    1. Collins, W. J. and
    2. M. H. Wanamaker
    (2014). Selection and economic gains in the great migration of african americans: new evidence from linked census data. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 6(1), 220–252.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
    1. Conyngton, M. K.
    (1917). Effect of Workmen’s Compensation Laws in Diminishing the Necessity of Industrial Employment of Women and Children: Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, No. 217. U.S. Gov. Printing Office.
    1. Corak, M.
    (2001). Death and Divorce: The Long-Term Consequences of Parental Loss on Adolescents. Journal of Labor Economics 19(3), 682–715.
    OpenUrlCrossRefWeb of Science
    1. Cunha, F. and
    2. J. J. Heckman
    (2008). Formulating, identifying and estimating the technology of cognitive and noncognitive skill formation. Journal of human resources 43(4), 738–782.
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
    1. Cunha, F.,
    2. J. J. Heckman, and
    3. S. M. Schennach
    (2010). Estimating the technology of cognitive and noncognitive skill formation. Econometrica 78(3), 883–931.
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMedWeb of Science
    1. Currie, J. and
    2. D. Almond
    (2011). Human capital development before age five. In Handbook of labor economics, Volume 4, pp. 1315–1486. Elsevier.
    OpenUrlCrossRefWeb of Science
    1. Currie, J. and
    2. C. Spatz Widom
    (2010). Long-term consequences of child abuse and neglect on adult economic well-being. Child maltreatment 15(2), 111–120.
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMedWeb of Science
    1. Dahl, G. B. and
    2. L. Lochner
    (2012). The impact of family income on child achievement: Evidence from the earned income tax credit. American Economic Review 102(5), 1927–56.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
    1. Del Boca, D.,
    2. C. Flinn, and
    3. M. Wiswall
    (2014). Household choices and child development. Review of Economic Studies 81(1), 137–185.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
    1. Dix, K.
    (1978). Work Relations in the Coal Industry: The Hand-Loading Era, 1880-1930. Number 7-2 in 78. West Virginia University Bulletin.
    1. Dribe, M.,
    2. E. Debiasi, and
    3. B. Eriksson
    (2022). The effect of parental loss on social mobility in early twentieth-century sweden. Demography 59(3), 1093–1115.
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
    1. Dupraz, Y. and
    2. A. Ferrara
    (2023). Fatherless: The long-term effects of losing a father in the us civil war. Journal of Human Resources.
    1. Ferman, B. and
    2. C. Pinto
    (2019). Inference in differences-in-differences with few treated groups and heteroskedasticity. Review of Economics and Statistics 101(3), 452–467.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
    1. Ferrie, J. P.
    (1996). A new sample of males linked from the public use microdata sample of the 1850 us federal census of population to the 1860 us federal census manuscript schedules. Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 29(4), 141–156.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
    1. Fishback, P.
    (2017). How successful was the new deal? the microeconomic impact of new deal spending and lending policies in the 1930s. Journal of Economic Literature 55(4), 1435–85.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
    1. Fishback, P. V.
    (1986). Workplace safety during the progressive era: Fatal accidents in bituminous coal mining, 1912–1923. Explorations in Economic History 23(3), 269–298.
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMedWeb of Science
    1. Fishback, P. V.
    (1992). Soft Coal, Hard Choices: The Economic Welfare of Bituminous Coal Miners, 1890-1930. Oxford University Press.
    1. Fishback, P. V. and
    2. S. E. Kantor
    (1998). The adoption of workers’ compensation in the united states, 1900–1930. The Journal of Law and Economics 41(2), 305–342.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
    1. Fishback, P. V. and
    2. S. E. Kantor
    (2000). A prelude to the welfare state: The origins of workers’ compensation. University of Chicago Press.
    1. Fronstin, P.,
    2. D. H. Greenberg, and
    3. P. K. Robins
    (2001). Parental disruption and the labour market performance of children when they reach adulthood. Journal of Population Economics 14(1), 137–172.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
    1. Gertler, P.,
    2. D. I. Levine, and
    3. M. Ames
    (2004). Schooling and parental death. Review of Economics and Statistics 86(1), 211–225.
    OpenUrlCrossRefWeb of Science
    1. Giesen, C. A. B.
    (1995). Coal Miners’ Wives. The University Press of Kentucky.
    1. Gimenez, L.,
    2. S.-Y. Chou,
    3. J.-T. Liu, and
    4. J.-L. Liu
    (2013). Parental loss and children’s wellbeing. Journal of Human Resources 48(4), 1035–1071.
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
    1. Grönqvist, H.,
    2. J. P. Nilsson, and
    3. P.-O. Robling
    (2020). Understanding how low levels of early lead exposure affect children’s life trajectories. Journal of Political Economy 128(9), 3376–3433.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
    1. Gruber, J.
    (2004). Is making divorce easier bad for children? the long-run implications of unilateral divorce. Journal of Labor Economics 22(4), 799–833.
    OpenUrl
    1. Guldin, M.-B.,
    2. J. Li,
    3. H. S. Pedersen,
    4. C. Obel,
    5. E. Agerbo,
    6. M. Gissler,
    7. S. Cnattingius,
    8. J. Olsen, and
    9. M. Vestergaard
    (2015). Incidence of suicide among persons who had a parent who died during their childhood: a population-based cohort study. JAMA Psychiatry 72(12), 1227–1234.
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
    1. Heckman, J.,
    2. R. Pinto, and
    3. P. Savelyev
    (2013). Understanding the mechanisms through which an influential early childhood program boosted adult outcomes. American Economic Review 103(6), 2052–86.
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
    1. Heckman, J. J. and
    2. S. Mosso
    (2014). The economics of human development and social mobility. Annu. Rev. Econ. 6(1), 689–733.
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
    1. Høeg, B. L.,
    2. C. Johansen,
    3. J. Christensen,
    4. K. Frederiksen,
    5. S. O. Dalton,
    6. A. Dyregrov,
    7. P. Bøge,
    8. A. Dencker, and
    9. P. E. Bidstrup
    (2018). Early parental loss and intimate relationships in adulthood: A nationwide study. Developmental Psychology 54(5), 963.
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
    1. Hoehn-Velasco, L.
    (2021). The long-term impact of preventative public health programs. The Economic Journal 131(634), 797–826.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
    1. Howard, G. and
    2. A. Ornaghi
    (2021). Closing time: The local equilibrium effects of prohibition. The Journal of Economic History 81(3), 792–830.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
    1. Inwood, K.,
    2. C. Minns, and
    3. F. Summerfield
    (2019). Occupational income scores and immigrant assimilation. evidence from the canadian census. Explorations in Economic History 72, 114–122.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
    1. Kalil, A.,
    2. M. Mogstad,
    3. M. Rege, and
    4. M. E. Votruba
    (2016). Father Presence and the Inter-generational Transmission of Educational Attainment. Journal of Human Resources 51(4), 869–899.
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
    1. Lang, K. and
    2. J. L. Zagorsky
    (2001). Does growing up with a parent absent really hurt? The Journal of Human Resources 36(2), 253–273.
    OpenUrlCrossRefWeb of Science
    1. Lantz, H. and
    2. J. McCrary
    (1958). People of Coal Town. Columbia University Press.
    1. MacKinnon, J. G. and
    2. M. D. Webb
    (2017). Wild bootstrap inference for wildly different cluster sizes. Journal of Applied Econometrics 32(2), 233–254.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
    1. McGill, N. P.
    (1923). The Welfare of Children in Bituminous Coal-Mining Communities in West Virginia. United States Children’s Bureau. Number 117. US Government Printing Office.
    1. McLanahan, S.,
    2. L. Tach, and
    3. D. Schneider
    (2013). The Causal Effects of Father Absence. Annual Review of Sociology 39, 399–427.
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
    1. Neumann, T. C.,
    2. P. V. Fishback, and
    3. S. Kantor
    (2010). The dynamics of relief spending and the private urban labor market during the new deal. The Journal of Economic History 70(1), 195–220.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
    1. Roberts, P.
    (1904). Anthracite Coal Communities. The Macmillan Company.
    1. Ruggles, S.,
    2. S. Flood,
    3. S. Foster,
    4. R. Goeken,
    5. J. Pacas,
    6. M. Schouweiler, and
    7. M. Sobek
    (2021). IPUMS USA: Version 11.0 [dataset]. Minneapolis, MN: IPUMS, https://doi.org/10.18128/D010.V11.0.
    1. Ruhm, C. J.
    (2004). Parental employment and child cognitive development. Journal of Human resources 39(1), 155–192.
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
    1. Saavedra, M. and
    2. T. Twinam
    (2020). A machine learning approach to improving occupational income scores. Explorations in Economic History 75, 101304.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
    1. Sechrist, R. P.
    (2012). Prohibition Movement in the United States, 1801–1920.
    1. Seror, A.
    (2022). Child development in parent-child interactions. Journal of political economy 130(9), 2462–2499.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
  3. U.S. Commissioner of Labor (1908). Twenty-Third Annual Report. Workmen’s Insurance and Benefit Funds in the United States.. United States Government Printing Office.
    1. Weinberg, B. A.,
    2. E. D. Gould, and
    3. A. Simhon
    (2019). Does Parental Quality Matter? Evidence on the Transmission of Human Capital Using Variation in Parental Influence from Death, Divorce, and Family Size. Journal of Labor Economics.
    1. Wilson, H.
    (1922). Child Labor and the Welfare of Children in an Anthracite Coal-Mining District. United States Children’s Bureau. Number 106. US Government Printing Office.
PreviousNext
Back to top

In this issue

Journal of Human Resources: 61 (3)
Journal of Human Resources
Vol. 61, Issue 3
1 May 2026
  • Table of Contents
  • Table of Contents (PDF)
  • Cover (PDF)
  • Index by author
  • Front Matter (PDF)
Download PDF
Article Alerts
Sign In to Email Alerts with your Email Address
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on Journal of Human Resources.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
A Mighty Toll
(Your Name) has sent you a message from Journal of Human Resources
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the Journal of Human Resources web site.
Citation Tools
A Mighty Toll
Ezra G. Goldstein
Journal of Human Resources Jan 2025, 0922-12547R2; DOI: 10.3368/jhr.0922-12547R2

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Share
A Mighty Toll
Ezra G. Goldstein
Journal of Human Resources Jan 2025, 0922-12547R2; DOI: 10.3368/jhr.0922-12547R2
Twitter logo Facebook logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One
Bookmark this article

Jump to section

  • Article
  • Figures & Data
  • Supplemental
  • Info & Metrics
  • References
  • PDF

Related Articles

  • Google Scholar

Cited By...

  • No citing articles found.
  • Google Scholar

More in this TOC Section

  • Negative Supply Shocks and Delayed Health Care
  • School Construction and Intergenerational Human Capital
  • Juggling Priorities
Show more Articles

Similar Articles

Keywords

  • Parental Absence
  • Parental Death
  • ORPHANS
  • INTERGENERATIONAL MOBILITY
  • J12
  • J62
  • N12
UW Press logo

© 2026 Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System

Powered by HighWire