How are they doing? The academic performance and mental wellbeing of world cup babies

In June 2002, South Korea cohosted the 17th FIFA World Cup. Unexpected wins carried the Korean National Football Team to the semi-finals and sparked an unprecedented euphoria among Koreans. Die-hard fans and occasional football viewers, young and old, women and men flocked the streets side by side, cheered for their team, and partied through the nights. In the subsequent spring of 2003, the country experienced a temporary and significant increase in its fertility rate. Using a difference-in-differences design, we exploit the quasi-experimental nature of this episode to investigate the Beckerian trade-off between the quantity and quality of children born to parents in South Korea. Our results support the notion of an adverse effect on child quality. Students born approximately ten months after the World Cup tend to perform significantly worse in school. Moreover, our results uncover a hitherto overlooked aspect: the same students exhibit significantly higher degrees of mental wellbeing. •The 2002 FIFA World Cup led to an unexpected and temporary increase in South Korea's fertility rate.•We use the quasi-experimental nature of the event to examine Becker's trade-off between quantity and quality of children.•Our results support the notion of adverse effects on child quality measured by academic performance or school test scores.•We uncover that the same students exhibit significantly higher degrees of mental wellbeing.