Are children an incentive or a disincentive for migration? Evidence from Vietnam

This study analyzes the influence of children on household migration decisions using data on current internal movement in Vietnam a country that has experienced significant rural–urban migration in the recent years. Families with children usually have three migration choices: move together, stay together or send only one parent to work afar. Using an instrumental variable approach, we show that having an additional child reduces the probability of household migration by 0.0115, while it increases the likelihood of fathers’ migration by 0.0121. These effects suggest that households with more children may be less mobile but may have a greater economic need for migration.     

Estimating Costs of Children from Micro-Unit Records: A New Procedure Applied to Australian Data

Measuring the costs of children is of immense practical importance in a range of economic and social policy areas. In this paper, we introduce a new econometric procedure that improves on existing methods for obtaining estimates of such costs from a demand system. We develop, using an extended linear expenditure system, an iterative maximum likelihood estimator that overcomes possible estimation problems that arise from the 2-step estimation procedures employed by earlier authors. We also allow for a more general assumption about the equation “errors”, that of non-zero correlation between the errors for different commodities in the same household. Another important contribution is the development of an estimation procedure for sets of seemingly unrelated regressions where the different sets of equations are linked by some common parameters. The proposed procedure is applied to the 1988–89 and 1993–94 Australian Household Expenditure Surveys and results obtained update estimates of both the commodity-specific and general scales previously obtained for Australia.

     

Polygyny and Child Growth: Evidence From Twenty-Six African Countries

Using household data from twenty-six African countries, this study examines the correlation between four measures of polygyny and child growth. External validity is added to existing small-sample evidence by investigating this correlation across many countries and by controlling for, as well as exploring, sources of heterogeneity at the regional, country, household, and maternal level. Household fixed-effects models indicate that the children of monogamous mothers have significantly greater height-for-age z-scores than children of polygynous mothers. Also, a low ranking in the hierarchy of mothers and the ratio of married women to men are negatively correlated with child height. The correlation varies widely across countries and is strongest for multigenerational polygynous households.     

GENETIC ENDOWMENTS, PARENTAL AND CHILD HEALTH IN RURAL ETHIOPIA

The determinants of long‐term child health in Ethiopia – as measured by height‐for‐age z‐scores – are examined controlling for community, household and individual level heterogeneity. The influence of parental health and the role of genetics are analysed. The height of parents is highly significant but no significant correlation with per capita expenditures is found. Food prices, birth order, sex and age of children, number of siblings of the mother, years of marriage and altitude are important determinants. Deprivations in later years are more important than during pre‐ or neo‐natal periods. Genetic inheritance seems to explain the correlations between child and parental health.     

What Can Child Anthropometry Reveal About Living Standards and Public Policy? An Illustration from Central Asia

The paper considers the case for the use of data on weight and height of children to assess living standards and public policy, contrasting them with monetized measures of welfare based on household incomes or expenditures. Data on child anthropometry are then used from Uzbekistan, the most populous of the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union, to investigate rural–urban differences in living standards, the impact of kindergartens on nutritional status, and the targeting of means-tested social assistance. Conclusions are drawn for the use of information on child anthropometry in the design of public policy.     

Maternal empowerment and child malnutrition in Bangladesh

ABSTRACT

The study examines the importance of maternal empowerment in reducing the prevalence of child malnutrition in Bangladesh. Maternal empowerment is measured by a composite index based on four proxy variables that promote maternal empowerment. Factor analysis technique is used in constructing empowerment index. Ordered probit models are specified and estimated using national-level household survey data. Maternal empowerment is found to be the third-most important predictor of child malnutrition in Bangladesh, preceded by maternal endowment and child characteristics. Household characteristics such as partner’s level of education and household income are also associated with child malnutrition. The study has a number of policy implications to address maternal empowerment and child malnutrition. Public policy should focus on factors of maternal empowerment and investment in maternal health in order to improve the health of the next generation.     

Stunting and academic achievement among Vietnamese children: new evidence from the young lives survey

Most of the empirical literature on the relationship between the health condition and skill development of school children are based on a static relationship between health and skill development. This article contributes to the literature by examining the dynamic relationship between stunting and school achievement using data from the first three waves of the Young Lives Survey in Vietnam. Using both structural equation and hybrid estimators, empirical results show that past school performance is the most significant predictor of the academic performance. Stunting has a significant negative effect on school performance, and its effect in the long run is as twice as much its effect in the short run. The empirical evidence also shows that the age of the child, mothers’ literacy, access to electricity and household consumption significantly affect school performance.     

The Impact of Children on Wages, Job Tenure, and the Division of Household Labour

In the absence of typical exclusion restrictions, covariance restrictions are used to obtain estimates of the effects of children on household behaviour. Using data from the PSID on two age samples, children are found to have a significant impact on many household decisions. However, while in the young sample exogenous fertility cannot be rejected, in the older sample this is not the case. Finally, if the average household had one less child, the male-female wage differential would decrease by 9.5 %.     

International Poverty Comparisons on Unit Record Data of Developing and Developed Countries

Cross country poverty comparisons on unit records have, rarely, involved both developing and developed countries. The present study attempts to fill this gap by comparing poverty across fourteen nations with diverse economic and demographic characteristics and at vastly different stages of economic development. The study contains evidence on (a) cross country variation in the equivalence scales estimated in the presence of both household size economies and adult/child relativities, (b) impact of demographic adjustment of the poverty line, that incorporate household size and composition changes, on the poverty rates, and (c) sensitivity of the poverty estimates and their rankings to the ‘equivalence elasticity’. The study finds that country rankings based on per capita GNP bear very little resemblance with that based on the aggregate poverty rates. The latter hide substantial variation in the poverty estimates across different household types.     

Using partial identification methods to estimate the effect of violence against women on their children’s health outcomes

A growing literature in economics seeks to estimate the costs of violence against women by examining, for example, its impact on the health outcomes of their children. However, it is difficult to assign a causal interpretation to these nonexperimental studies due to the presence of unobservable characteristics affecting violence and health outcomes simultaneously. The lack of credible instrumental variables applicable in several countries further limits our knowledge. I address this gap by using new partial identification methods to estimate the relative size of the unobservables needed to eliminate the estimated effects in nonexperimental studies. I also expand the external validity of the analysis by using data from five standardized nationally representative household surveys in Latin America. Consistent with previous studies, cross-sectional estimates show large negative associations between violence against women and an array of child health outcomes. However, when accounting for omitted variable bias, at best, two-thirds of the estimates remain robust and they are concentrated on the outcomes with the largest cross-sectional estimated impacts.     

Do Population Control Policies Induce More Human Capital Investment? Twins, Birth Weight and China's "One-Child" Policy

In this paper, we address the issues of whether reductions in fertility increase human capital investments per child and whether twinning can identify the quantity–quality (Q–Q) trade-off. We show that estimates of the effects of twinning at higher parities on the outcomes of older children in prior studies do not identify family-size effects but are confounded by inter-child allocation effects because of the endowment deficit and close spacing of twins. However, examining the effects of twinning by birth order, net of the effects stemming from the endowment deficit of twins, can provide upper and lower bounds on the trade-off between the family size and average child quality. Our estimates, based on data from China, indicate that an extra child at parity one or at parity two, net of one component of birth-endowment effects associated with birth weight, significantly decreases the schooling progress, the expected college enrolment, grades in school and the assessed health of all children in the family. Despite the evident significant trade-off between number of children and child quality in China, the findings suggest that the contribution of the one-child policy in China to the development of its human capital was modest.     

Impact of Low Birth Weight Child on Maternal Labour Force Participation: Evidence from Taiwan

This paper examines the impact of having a low birth weight child on maternal labour force participation. We use the instrumental variable technique, the sister fixed‐effects model and the propensity score matching method to control for the endogeneity of child health. Using a unique national merged parent–child data set from Taiwan, the within‐sister estimates indicate that having a low birth weight child reduces female employment during the first 3 years after the birth, by 1–2 percentage points. Furthermore, the adverse employment effect is found to be particularly strong for those mothers who have an illegitimate child with low birth weight.     

Cities,slums, and child nutrition in Bangladesh

This study uses novel household survey data that are representative of Bangladesh's large cities, and of slum and nonslum areas within the cities, to investigate the effects of demographic and socioeconomic factors on child nutrition status in 2013. The study also decomposes the difference in mean child nutrition status between slum and nonslum areas in 2013, and the increase in mean child nutrition status in slum and nonslum areas from 2006 to 2013. Mother's education attainment and household wealth largely explain the cross‐sectional difference and intertemporal change in mean child nutrition status. Although positive in some cases, the effects of maternal and child health services, and potential health‐protective household amenities, on child nutrition status differ by the type of health facility, household amenity, and urban area (slum or nonslum). Focusing on nutrition‐sensitive programs for slum residents and the urban poor is consistent with the results.     

Why is child labor illegal?

We present a theory of the emergence of laws restricting child labor or imposing mandatory education that is consistent with the fact that poor parents tend to oppose such laws. We find that if altruistic parents are unable to commit to educating their children, child-labor laws can increase the welfare of higher-income parents in an ex ante sense. On the basis of an empirical analysis of Latin-American household surveys, we demonstrate that per capita income in the country of residence has the predicted effect on child labor supply, even after controlling for other household characteristics.     

Household-level analysis of the impacts of electricity consumption on welfare and the environment in Cambodia: Empirical evidence and policy implications

Cambodia’s biomass consumption is the most dominant energy source at residential sector, and its use is mainly for cooking and heating which could affect health due to indoor air pollution. The biomass is mainly sourced from wood cutting and forest-encroachment that could impact the environment due to reduction of forest at considerable scale. By using the data 2015 of Cambodia Socio-Economic Survey, the study investigates the impacts of electricity consumption on household welfare, such as earnings and the school performance of children in the households, and further to investigate its impacts on the environment. The study found that household’s access to electricity with ability to spend on electricity consumption contributes to the positive household welfare effects and environment via a reduction of biomass consumption, and the more household spends on biomass, the more they are prone to sickness of lung problem. The study also confirmed the important role of human capital formation for the positive impact on the welfare and the environment. These findings lead to policy implications that would improve affordable access to electricity to ensure that all households can use electricity for their basic needs and productivity, and also to reduce the negative effects on environment.     

COMPARISON OF ALTERNATIVE TAX AND TRANSFER TREATMENT OF CHILDREN USING ADULT EQUIVALENCE SCALES

This paper estimates adult equivalence scales in the context of a nonlinear demand system using cross-section individual household data. It then evaluates the treatment of children under the tax allowance and child benefit systems on the basis of the estimated equivalence scales. The results suggest that a child benefit system allowing for economies of scale in the family is consistent with the cost of children implied by the notion of adult equivalence scale.     

Child survival,height for age and household characteristics in Brazil

"The impact of household characteristics on child survival and height, conditional on age, is examined using household survey data from Brazil. Parental education is found to have a very strong positive effect on both outcomes and this is robust to the inclusion of household income and also parental heights, which partly proxy for unobserved family background characteristics. We find that income effects are significant and positive for child survival but insignificant for for child height although the latter depends on identification assumptions. Parental height has a large positive impact on child height and on survival rates even after controlling for all other observable characteristics."     

Trade openness and child health: a heterogeneous panel cointegration analysis

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we examine the impact of trade openness on child health, based on a cross-country panel data set covering 66 countries for the period 1960–2013. To account for the time-series properties of the data and potential cross-country heterogeneity in the impact of trade openness, the study employs heterogeneous panel cointegration techniques that are robust to omitted variables and endogeneity problems. The results reveal that trade openness and child health are cointegrated, and that trade works to reduce the child mortality rate significantly in the long-run. The results are robust to the methodology and trade openness and child health indicators employed, as well as to the presence of cross-sectional dependence and changes in the sample composition. The findings also suggest that the impact of trade on child health tends to be stronger in countries with better institutional quality, lower corruption, good governance, political stability, and sound policies that promote private sector development.     

EASY MONEY OR HARD TIMES? HEALTH AND 401(k) LOANS

Rising health care costs and declining personal savings rates are nearly synonymous with household medical debt. For some, defined contribution (DC) retirement savings plans provide a ready source of funds to meet these medical debts. We examine whether health status and health insurance coverage predict the likelihood of having a DC loan using data from the Federal Reserve's triennial Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) from 1989 to 2007. We find that poor health raises the likelihood that a household will borrow from their DC plans, even controlling for other forms of debt, access to credit, and whether households are covered by health insurance. Our estimates of the amount of the DC loan, taking selection effects into account, indicate that DC loan amounts are also influenced by health status; those with poor health borrow more from their DC plans. Apart from health status, once a household decides to borrow from their retirement funds, race and education also influence how much to borrow. We argue that public policy can improve the long‐term financial retirement security of households by offering more opportunities to save for medical emergencies, while cautiously maintaining the opportunity to borrow from DC plans. (JEL D12, D14, D91)     

Child participation,nature of work,and fertility demand: a theoretical analysis

A model of utility maximization with home production of children and standard of living is used to analyze the fertility behavior of a subsistence farming household in an agricultural lesser developed country. Assuming children as both consumer and producer goods, and assuming a prestige cost of their participation in labor force, the author derived alternative levels of fertility demand. The following different conditions of child participation were identified depending upon the size of the prestige cost and the resultant net gain from child work: (1) participation in wage-labor, if marginal child income from the family farm is less than marginal wage income; (2) participation in family farm works only, if the larger wage income is neutralized by a higher prestige cost, implying a lower child contribution; (3) participation in family farm works only, if its marginal child income is greater than wage income, thus providing the largest child contribution; and (4) no participation in labor force at all, implied by a very high prestige cost and resulting in no child contribution. The household demands a larger number of children under conditions (1) and (3) than under conditions (2) and (4). The results are then used to draw inferences regarding fertility behavior across different landholding households. It appears that landholding reduces fertility initially, increases it at the intermediate levels, and then decreases it when the household becomes a non-cultivating rental income earner. The nonmonotonic landholding-fertility relationship explains the contradictory empirical evidence which exists in the literature while also suggesting important implications for fertility regulation policy.