Communication Barriers and Infant Health: The Intergenerational Effect of Randomly Allocating Refugees across Language Regions

This paper investigates the intergenerational effect of communication barriers on child health at birth. We study refugees in Switzerland who come from French- or Italian-speaking countries and who, upon arrival, are randomly allocated to different cantons in which either German, French, or Italian is the dominant language. Children born to mothers who were exogenously allocated to a region whose dominant language matches their origin language are, on average, 72 grams (or 2.2 percent) heavier. Further analyses suggest that this effect is likely driven by information about health-related behavior and services. Coethnic networks, however, can partly compensate for communication barriers. (JEL I12, J13, J15, J16, Z13)