Daniel Rees, University of Colorado, Denver

The Federal Effort to Desegregate Southern Hospitals and the Black-White Infant Mortality Gap

Abstract

In 1966, Southern hospitals were barred from participating in Medicare unless they discontinued their long-standing practice of racial segregation. Using data from five Deep South states and exploiting county-level variation in Medicare certification dates, we find that gaining access to an ostensibly integrated hospital had no effect on the Black-White infant mortality gap, although it may have discouraged small numbers of Black mothers from giving birth at home attended by a midwife. These results are consistent with descriptions of the federal hospital desegregation campaign as producing only cosmetic changes and illustrate the limits of anti-discrimination policies imposed upon reluctant actors.

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Daniel I. Rees is a Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Colorado Denver. He received a B.A. from Oberlin College and a Ph.D. from the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Professor Rees is interested in the determinants and consequences of risky adolescent behavior as well as the effects of prenatal stress on child health. Currently, he is studying the mortality transition at the turn of the 20th century, the relationship between midwifery laws and maternal mortality, and the long-term effects of smoking on health.  Professor Rees is an IZA Research Fellow, an NBER Research Associate, and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Population Economics.

You can read more about Dan Rees here

CEBI contact: Tianyi Wang