| Author Name | AKESAKA Mika (Kobe University) / SHIGEOKA Hitoshi (University of Tokyo) |
|---|---|
| Creation Date/NO. | March 2025 25-E-024 |
| Research Project | Evaluation of the Effects of Institutional and Environmental Factors on Family Formation, Parental Labor Market Performance and Children's Academic Performance |
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Abstract
We demonstrate that heat disproportionately impairs human capital accumulation among low-performing students compared with their high-performing peers, using data from 22 million students who took nationwide examinations in Japan between 2007 and 2019. Given the strong correlation between academic performance and socioeconomic background, this suggests that heat exposure exacerbates pre-existing socioeconomic disparities among children. However, access to air conditioning in schools significantly mitigates these adverse effects across all achievement levels, with particularly pronounced benefits for lower-performing students. These findings suggest that public investment in school infrastructure can help reduce the unevenly distributed damage caused by heat to student learning.
