在过去的一个世纪里，死于饥荒的人数比死于两次世界大战的人数加起来还要多。更多的人遭遇饥荒并幸存下来。然而，我们对饥荒对这些幸存者的长期影响几乎一无所知。本文通过估计中国大饥荒对幸存者成年健康和劳动力市场结果的影响来解决这一问题。它解决了两个主要的经验困难:1)测量饥荒强度的数据局限性;和2)潜在的联合决定饥荒发生和幸存者的结果。作为饥荒强度的衡量标准，我们使用了人口迁移较少的地区和时间内幸存人口的区域队列规模。然后，我们利用一个看似合理的饥荒强度外生变异的新来源，来估计儿童暴露于饥荒对成人健康、教育程度和劳动力供应的因果影响。结果表明，饥荒对成年人的健康和工作能力有重大不利影响。影响的大小与饥荒开始时的年龄呈负相关。 For example, for those who were one year old at the onset of the famine, exposure on average reduced height by 2.08% (3.34cm), weight by 6.03% (3.38kg), weight-for-height by 4% (0.01 kg/cm), upper arm circumference by 3.95% (0.99cm) and labor supply by 6.93% (3.28 hrs/week). The results also suggest that famine exposure decreased educational attainment by 3% (0.19 years); and that selection for survival decreased within-region inequality in famine stricken regions.