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West Virginia College analysis has revealed detrimental intergenerational reproductive well being results from the Japanese American detainment camps of World Struggle II.
Ladies who had doubtless been incarcerated within the camps as youngsters finally gave beginning to much less wholesome infants than Asian American girls who weren’t incarcerated, in response to well being economist Daniel Grossman.
Grossman, affiliate professor of economics within the WVU John Chambers School of Enterprise and Economics and a college affiliate on the Nationwide Bureau of Financial Analysis, discovered Japanese American moms born as much as a decade after the camps closed had been topic to the elevated chance of poor outcomes like low beginning weights for his or her youngsters.
The Journal of Public Economics printed the findings by Grossman and his co-authors. Their paper illuminates the well being results of in utero and formative years shocks, and the continued reverberations generated by occasions like pressured migrations.
“This study demonstrates that early life trauma hurts not only those directly affected, but also the next generation,” Grossman stated.
“Our work establishes long-term negative consequences from one of the largest forced displacement episodes in the United States, when individuals of Japanese ancestry, most of whom were U.S. citizens, were abruptly incarcerated. For example, we show that more babies with low birth weights were born to women incarcerated in the camps than to non-incarcerees—one additional low birth weight baby per 100 births, the equivalent of a 15% increase.”
He defined that, in 1942, below the guise of nationwide safety considerations about Japanese sabotage and espionage, President Franklin Roosevelt signed an order that might be used to justify the forcible evacuation of greater than 110,000 Japanese People from their properties to jail camps the place they remained for a mean of greater than three years.
They endured mud storms, excessive temperatures, insufficient meals provides, underequipped medical amenities, and common epidemics of diarrhea, dysentery, typhoid and tuberculosis—residing circumstances that doubtless weakened reproductive well being.
Earlier than World Struggle II, 90% of people of Japanese ancestry residing within the continental U.S. resided in California, Oregon and Washington. Roosevelt’s order led to the elimination of almost all of them from their properties and into jail camps.
Past common results: Modifications-in-Modifications estimates for birthweight. Credit score: Journal of Public Economics (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2025.105308
Nevertheless, in Hawaii, the Japanese inhabitants comprised over a 3rd of the islands’ whole inhabitants, Grossman stated. That reality satisfied U.S. officers that mass incarceration would disrupt the Hawaiian financial system.
“That’s why just 1% of the population of Japanese descent living in Hawaii were incarcerated, versus the almost complete imprisonment of people of Japanese ancestry in the mainland U.S.,” he stated. “That fact gave us an ideal comparison group of non-incarcerated Japanese American mothers against which we could measure the incarceree group.”
Grossman found Japanese American moms born on the West Coast earlier than 1946—girls doubtless incarcerated in camps as youngsters—gave beginning to infants 81 grams lighter on common than infants born to the comparability group of Japanese American moms from Hawaii, who doubtless weren’t incarcerated.
He additionally in contrast towards non-incarceree West Coast Asian American moms. The impact was lower than when evaluating towards moms from Hawaii, however nonetheless vital: infants born to moms incarcerated within the camps had been on common 59 grams lighter than the infants of Asian American moms who lived on the West Coast throughout World Struggle II however weren’t incarcerated.
To clarify why non-incarceree moms on the mainland tended to have infants with decrease beginning weights than their counterparts in Hawaii, Grossman pointed to maternal trauma from “persistent anti-Asian biases on the West Coast: prejudice, hostility, prohibitions against intermarrying with white people or owning land, ineligibility for citizenship for those born abroad, segregation in housing and education, rent discrimination, physical attacks and anti-Asian political campaigns.”
After the camps closed, the federal government warned former incarcerees towards publicly congregating or having Japanese neighbors, so massive numbers of Japanese People resettled all through the U.S. in a pressured mass migration. Stripped of their belongings, they struggled to seek out housing and work.
To gauge whether or not the lengthy, turbulent resettlement interval contributed to extra detrimental well being outcomes, Grossman prolonged the evaluation from the unique group of Japanese American moms born in and earlier than 1946 to moms born inside the subsequent 10 years.
For Japanese American moms born between 1947 and 1956, he documented barely diminished however nonetheless substantial detrimental reproductive well being results from the tough transition course of, when households had been on the transfer with few possessions and no regular revenue.
“Forced migration uproots communities,” Grossman stated.
“The trauma, loss of assets and displacement have long-lasting effects. Most research so far has focused on the labor or political outcomes of forced migrations or incarceration, but the health consequences are understudied, despite deep ripples across generations. Decades after exposure to incarceration, the nutritional, psychological and economic deprivations incarcerees experienced still harm their offspring.”
Extra data:
Daniel Grossman et al, The Intergenerational Well being Results of Pressured Displacement: Japanese American Incarceration throughout WWII, Journal of Public Economics (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2025.105308
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Examine exhibits ripple results from World Struggle II detainment camps on Japanese People’ reproductive well being (2025, Could 30)
retrieved 30 Could 2025
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