CHILD LABOR AND SCHOOL ENROLLMENT IN RURAL INDIA: WHOSE EDUCATION MATTERS?

This paper empirically analyzes the determinants of child labor and school enrollment in rural Andhra Pradesh, India. A village fixed‐effect logit model for each child is estimated with the incidence of child labor or school enrollment as the dependent variable, in order to investigate individual and household characteristics associated with the incidence. Among the determinants, this paper focuses on whose education matters most in deciding the status of each child, an issue not previously investigated in the context of the joint family system. The regression results show that the education of the child's mother is more important in reducing child labor and in increasing school enrollment than that of the child's father, the household head, or the spouse of the head. The effect of the child's mother is similar on boys and girls while that of the child's father is more favorable on boys.     

DETERMINANTS OF SCHOOL ENROLMENT AND EDUCATION ATTAINMENT: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM KENYA1

This paper investigates the determinants of demand for schooling in Kenya. Probit and ordered probit methods are used to model enrolment and attainment respectively. The results show that child characteristics, parental education and other household characteristics, quality and cost of schooling are important determinants of demand for education services in Kenya. The results further show that girls would be more affected by policy changes than boys. The findings call for targeting in efforts to boost and sustain demand for schooling in Kenya. The study recommends immediate policy interventions focusing on improving quality of education and poverty alleviation.     

Does productive microcredit improve rural children's education? Evidence from rural Vietnam

Whether increasing access to microcredit results in better educational outcomes for children’s education in rural areas remains an important but inconclusive topic in development literature. This paper contributes to this strand of research both theoretically and empirically. We develop a theoretical model where a representative household uses microcredit to fund its family business and maximises its lifetime utility. Based on the outcomes of its business, the parents make an optimal decision on the level of their children’s schooling investment. Solving the maximisation problem, we show that a household’s optimal education for its children is directly related to the level of microcredit. Empirically, we utilise the Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) dataset from 2008 to 2016 to estimate the impact of microcredit on rural children’s schooling. We find that microcredit borrowing by rural households negatively affects their children’s education, which is more profound for boys than girls. Policymakers need to be aware of such side effects in designing microcredit policy and adopt auxiliary measures, such as incorporating a clause on children's education in the borrowing terms, to alleviate the negative impact on children’s educational outcomes.     

Rural–urban differences in parental spending on children's primary education in Malawi

Using Malawian data, this paper answers two interrelated questions: are there rural–urban differences in the factors that influence the probability that a household spends or does not spend on own children's education; and are there rural–urban differences in the factors that affect educational expenditure if a household decides to spend? Computed elasticities indicate that spending on education by rural households is more sensitive to changes in income compared with urban households, suggesting that spending on education in rural areas is a luxury good. In both areas, a mother's employment and education has a larger impact on spending compared with those of a father. Urban households compared with their rural counterparts are more sensitive to the quality of access to primary schools. We find no evidence of gender bias in school spending in urban areas, but rural households exhibit bias in favour of boys.     

Household schooling and child labor decisions in rural Bangladesh

Using empirical methods, this paper examines household schooling and child labor decisions in rural Bangladesh. The results suggest the following: poverty and low parental education are associated with lower schooling and greater child labor; asset-owning households are more likely to have children combine child labor with schooling; households choose the same activity for all children within the household, regardless of gender; there is a weak association between direct costs and household decisions; finally, higher child wages encourage households to practice child labor.     

The health of left-behind children in rural China

Child health is not only a key indicator of overall quality of public health, but also vital for the future economic development of a country. In recent years, with unprecedented urbanization of China, many children in rural areas have been left behind while their parents migrate to urban areas to seek employment opportunities. Thus, it is considerably important for us to understand the effects of lack of parental care on the health status of left-behind children. Using data from China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), we find that the left-behind children in rural areas are significantly 20.0% more likely to get sick or develop chronic conditions than those living with their parents. We also find that girls are more vulnerable than boys and younger children are more vulnerable than older children to lack of parental care.     

Youth Education and Work in Mexico

A holistic approach to schooling in developing countries—considering schooling in conjunction with labor force work, child care, and other household responsibilities—is necessary to construct policies that will encourage greater educational attainment, especially for children and youth in poor families. Using data from the Encuesta Nacional de Empleo Urbano (ENEU), we jointly estimate the determinants of studying and working, doing both, or doing neither for 12- to 17 year-olds in urban Mexico. We consider the implications of defining work to include both labor force employment and household domestic work, in contrast to the traditional definition of market-based employment. Results based on the traditional definition indicate that girls are 13.8 percentage points more likely than boys to specialize in school, while those based on the more inclusive measure of work indicate that girls are 7.7 percentage points less likely than boys to specialize in school.     

Education and family health care spending

Michael Grossman's seminal work on the demand for health extended the concept of a household production function to the commodity “good health.” In this framework, education represents an “environmental variable” that enhances the monetary returns to investments in health through the use of time and medical care in health production. Using data from the 2004 to 2012 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), we examine the association between parental education and family health care spending in single-mother and two-parent families. We estimate one- and two-part expenditure models for total family health care spending, for specific components of such spending, and also examine the impact of parental education on selected measures of family health. Controlling for family income and health insurance status, we find consistent evidence that parental education beyond 12 years of schooling is associated with increases in family health care spending and with reductions in the likelihood of adverse health conditions.     

Chinese household saving and dependent children: Theory and evidence

This paper examines the impact of family size on household saving. We first study a theoretical life-cycle model that includes finite lifetimes and saving for retirement and in which parents care about the consumption by their dependent children. The model implies a negative relationship between the number of dependent children in the family and the household saving rate. Then, we test the model's implications using new survey data on household finances in China. We use the differential enforcement of the one-child policy across counties to address the possible endogeneity between household saving and fertility decisions in a two-stage least squares Tobit regression. We find that Chinese families with fewer dependent children have significantly higher saving rates. The data yields several additional insights on household saving patterns. Households with college-age children have lower saving rates, and households residing in urban areas have higher saving rates and a lower ratio of education expenditures to income. However, having an additional child reduces saving rates more for households in urban areas than in rural areas. Our regressions also indicate that saving rates vary with age and tend to be higher for households with more workers, higher education, better health, and more assets.     

Solution or isolation: Is boarding school a good solution for left-behind children in rural China?

In recent decades, rural China has experienced a rapid increase in boarding school enrollment rates and in the population of left-behind children (LBC) (i.e., rural children whose parents migrate to urban areas for work). LBC tend to be worse off in numerous dimensions. At 61 million, China has the world's largest population of LBC. As it provides a different residential environment, boarding school can potentially exacerbate or mitigate the negative effects of parental migration. Using nationally representative data on Chinese families, we estimate the impact of parental migration and boarding school on child outcomes in cognition and physical and mental health. We find that while boarding school has no effect on LBC physical and mental health, it substantially improves performance on achievement tests for both LBC and non-LBC. Policies aimed at improving boarding school conditions in China, may improve not only cognitive outcomes, but also child physical and mental well-being.     

生育政策、子女数量与中国的性别教育平等

近年来,中国性别教育差距快速缩小并呈现出女性高等教育在校生比重超越男性的现象,文章从生育政策视角对这一现象进行了解释,认为计划生育政策通过改善女性教育获得显著促进了性别教育平等。队列分析显示,生育政策之后的出生队列中女性相对教育水平明显提高,性别教育差距明显缩小。基于生育政策地区差异和出生队列差异构建的双差分模型分析发现,以农村二孩政策地区为参照组,严格的独生子女政策在提高女性相对受教育机会方面更为明显。但相对于二孩政策,一孩半政策在促进性别教育平等方面不存在显著差异,这可能由于在一孩半政策下独女户和双女户数量较少,家庭受性别偏好影响会将资源向男性倾斜,导致政策没有通过控制家庭规模提高女性相对教育获得机会。研究认为,随着中国放松生育政策,农村地区由一孩半政策过渡到二孩政策并不会对女性教育获得产生明显影响,应该关注生育政策调整对严格独生子女政策地区女性教育获得的影响。同时,随着性别教育差距逐步缩小,可以利用劳动力市场政策降低市场性别歧视,进一步提高女性地位并促进性别平等。     

An Analysis of Childhood Malnutrition in Rural India: Role of Gender,Income and Other Household Characteristics

There are controversies regarding the role of individual and household characteristics in childhood nutritional status measured by anthropometric indicators. Using a nutrition index based on weight-for-age of children in rural India, the paper re-examines this issue. Ordered probit estimates of nutritional status suggest female literacy improves the nutritional status of boys at the cost of girls while higher per capita current income improves that of both boys and girls, though the impact is higher for boys; however, effect of income is not robust when we use instruments of longer-run income. But more income and literacy give more ways to discriminate between boys and girls.     

Poverty and Other Determinants of Child Labor in Bangladesh

In this research we examine poverty and other determinants of child labor in Bangladesh. We define income quintiles as a means of measuring family poverty and add child and family characteristics to our model. We estimate the likelihood that a child will work, using separate logistic regression models for younger and older boys and girls in urban and rural areas. Our results support the notion that a family's poverty affects the probability that a child will work; keeping children away from work is a luxury these families cannot afford. Moreover, it is important to examine separate demographic groups in order to fully understand the determinants of child labor in Bangladesh since the effects of child and family variables on the probability that a child will work differ among these groups.     

The Determinants of Child Labour and Child Schooling in Ghana

This paper investigates the main determinants of child labourand child schooling in Ghana, with special reference to theirinteraction. The study provides evidence on the impact of povertyand quality of schooling on child labour hours, taking intoaccount their potential endogeneity. The exercise distinguishesbetween cluster poverty and household poverty in the two-stageHeckman estimation procedure. In addition, it relies on a setof non-common regressors to identify the child labour hoursregression from the selection equation. Other methodologicalfeatures include simultaneous equations estimation of childlabour, child schooling and poverty, taking into account theirjoint endogeneity. The empirical results contain some evidenceof sharp rural urban differences, thus, pointing to the needto adopt region specific policies in enhancing child welfare.However, rural, semi-urban and urban Ghana agree on the effectiverole that improved school attendance can play in curbing childlabour.     

A decade's story of childhood malnutrition inequality in China: Where you live does matter

A concentration index methodology to analyze the inequality in childhood malnutrition in China is outlined. Height-for-age z-score is used as a measure of childhood malnutrition. Using household survey data from nine Chinese provinces, we found that per capita household income, household head's education, urban residence and access to a bus stop are associated with lower malnutrition. Child's age has a nonlinear relationship with the malnutrition status. Income growth and access to public transportation are associated with less severe inequality, while rural–urban gap, provincial differentials, and unequal distribution of household head's education are associated with higher levels of inequality in childhood malnutrition. Gender is not relevant for either malnutrition status or inequality. Investments in infrastructure and welfare programs are recommended to ameliorate the inequality in childhood malnutrition.     

我国中老年人健康需求影响因素的实证研究——基于CHARLS数据的分析

本文依据中国健康与养老追踪调查(CHARLS)2012年的数据,运用Probit有序选择模型,对影响我国中老年人健康需求的因素进行实证研究。由模型估计结果得出结论:1男性的健康水平高于女性的健康水平,城镇居民的健康水平高于农村居民;2综合来看,年轻时良好的健康水平和稳定的婚姻状况对中老年健康有正向的显著影响。年龄和教育对健康需求的影响比较符合Grossman模型的预测结果,且显著,收入对健康的影响不太符合Grossman模型的预测;3以性别做为分组变量的模型估计结果显示,教育对女性的健康影响更大,婚姻状况和收入对男性的影响更显著;以城乡为分组变量的模型估计结果表明,收入和教育对农村居民的健康水平有更大的影响。     

女性受教育水平对家庭消费升级的影响

基于2018年CFPS数据，利用最小二乘法和工具变量法研究女性受教育水平对家庭消费结构的影响。结果表明，女性受教育水平能显著提升家庭消费总需求，且对发展型消费具有正向作用，但对生存型和享受型消费具有负向作用。异质性分析表明，随着女性年龄的增长，家庭对服务型消费需求增加；从城乡和地区角度分析，城市地区对服务型消费需求高于农村地区，中东部对服务型消费的需求高于西部地区。     

Influence of a Wife's Working Status on Her Husband's Accumulation of Human Capital

Japanese household‐level data consisting of husband's earnings, wife's working status and their schooling levels are used to test three hypotheses, with particular consideration given to the time‐consuming process of human capital accumulation within marriages. The empirical results supports the following hypotheses: (i) a non‐working wife's schooling has a greater positive effect on her husband's earnings than a working wife's schooling; and (ii) the effect of a non‐working wife's schooling increases with the length of marriage, whereas the effect of a working wife's schooling does not change over the course of marriage.     

Female education and child mortality in Indonesia

This paper uses a sample of 6620 women from the 1994 Indonesian Demographic and Health Survey to examine the relationship between female education and child mortality in Indonesia. Female education is measured in terms of both years of education and literacy. Both primary education and secondary schooling significantly decrease the probability of child death, while literacy plays an insignificant role. When the sample is divided into urban and rural locations, primary and secondary education are significant in both areas in reducing the likelihood of a mother experiencing child mortality. The benefits of public and private infrastructure appear to differ in rural and urban areas. The results confirm that investment in female human capital lowers the probability of child mortality.     

中专生社会支持调查研究

目的分析探讨中专生社会支持获取的状况与特点。方法采用社会支持评定量表（SSRS）与症状自评量表（SCL-90）对254名中专生进行问卷调查。结果中专生社会支持水平在不同年级、男女、城乡学生、独生子女与非独生子女之间均无显著差异，心理健康者在主观支持上评分显著高于心理问题者。结论在中专生心理健康教育中，要重视良好的社会网络特别是主观支持的建立和利用.