Who cares for children? A quantitative study of childcare in South Africa

In this study we investigate the gender division of labour in the physical and financial care of children in South Africa, in the context of large race differences in rates of union formation and parent–child co-residence. Using national micro-data, we show that across a variety of household forms, women are the primary caregivers of children even when they are not a child’s biological mother. Women are also more likely to provide physical care than men are to provide financial support for children’s schooling. However, this gender imbalance is far larger in the case of African children, the majority of whom do not live with their father. For most African children, both their physical and financial care is provided by women who are typically the child’s biological mother, but also the child’s grandmother or another female relative.     

Parental socioeconomic status and children’s cognitive ability in China

It is widely recognized that intergenerational transmission is one of the primary causes of persistent social inequality. Using nationally representative data, the China Family Panel Studies, this paper is one of the first to comprehensively investigate parental SES and children’s cognitive outcomes in China and moves beyond existing work by accounting for the direct intergenerational transmission of cognitive ability and by examining various novel mechanisms. Our results show that parents’ education rather than income is positively associated with their children’s cognitive abilities. The analysis of mechanisms shows that educational disparity widens the gap in parental investment, as well as parental beliefs regarding education and expectations for their children. Nevertheless, we do not find differences in parenting productivity. In addition, we find that the impact is more prominent in rural areas where education resources are much more limited. Various tests have been performed to prove the robustness of our findings.     

居家养老服务的制度安排与政府角色担当

政府购买居家养老服务是在养老服务中引入市场竞争机制的一种制度安排。在社会管理改革的背景下,政府购买服务这一工具对于促进养老服务的治道变革、提升政府的养老服务能力具有重要作用。质量模型从政府购买居家养老服务消费者感知服务质量的维度视角探讨居家养老服务质量的测评方法,可拓宽政府购买居家养老服务绩效的研究路径。     

Migrating for children’s better future: Intergenerational mobility of internal migrants’ children in Indonesia

Internal migration dominates population mobility in Indonesia; according to the 2010 census, there were almost 30 million permanent migrants, around 12.5 percent of the population. The effects of this internal migration on the second generation continue to be under-explored. This paper investigates the long-term impact of parents’ migration on their children’s intergenerational per capita expenditure when adults. We argue that parental migration affects the human capital investment on their children, which has a direct impact on the children’s outcomes when adults and on their deviation from the parents’ economic status, hence their intergenerational mobility. We pooled the five waves of data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS), and we tackled the self-selection of parents’ migration using an endogenous treatment regression. Our findings show that despite the fact that parental migration increases the education level of children and their per capita expenditure, it increases intergenerational mobility of the children as adults compared with non-migrants’ children when they live in urban areas as adults, come from the poorest parents, or had migrated during childhood. The left-behind children have more intergenerational mobility only if their father migrated, while there is no significant impact on intergenerational mobility if their mother migrated. The results are consistent with the persistence of Indonesian individual inequality.     

A model of counterfeiting: A duopoly approach

This paper establishes a duopoly model, which considers consumers’ preference exhibits the horizontal differentiation and vertical differentiation simultaneously, to investigate how counterfeiting affects firms’ market power and consumer's purchasing behavior. The effects of government enforcement on counterfeiting are also concerned. The findings tell that (1) the market power of the firms is higher than the one when consumers with only the characteristic of horizontal differentiation or vertical differentiation; (2) when the production cost of a genuine product increases, the consumers who originally purchased this genuine product may continue to purchase the genuine one, purchase the genuine of the other brand, or, quite interestingly, purchase the counterfeiting product of the other brand; (3) If government imposes a (stricter) enforcement on counterfeiting, the consumers who do not have a strong preference on a particular brand of product but originally purchased the counterfeit of this brand of product may instead purchase the genuine one or purchase nothing; the consumers who originally purchased its genuine may instead purchase the genuine of the other brand or purchase nothing.     

The impact of parental migration on non-cognitive abilities of left behind children in northwestern China

Despite the vast literature surrounding various aspects of left behind children (LBC)’s development in China, very few studies have examined the development of, and impact on their non-cognitive abilities as a result of parental migration. Using survey data consisting of 5002 eighth graders from 160 middle schools in northwestern China, this paper investigates how parental migration affects children’s non-cognitive abilities, as is measured by Big Five components of conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, and openness, as well as children’s grit. We narrow our analysis to long run and short run migration subsamples and use the propensity score matching method to address the potential selection bias issue. Our results show that mother’s migration is particularly harmful to the development of children’s non-cognitive abilities, as mother is usually the primary caregiver and mother’s migration makes less economic contribution to the family. In the long run, LBC with migrant mother tend to have lower levels of conscientiousness and grit; they also have higher level of neuroticism (or lower level of emotional stability). In the short run, when mother migrates, children tend to have lower levels of conscientiousness, agreeableness and openness.     

The effects of formal and informal child care on the Mother's labor supply—Evidence from urban China

The women's labor force participation rate in China has declined considerably during the last twenty years in urban China. Since the reforms started in the mid-1990s, publicly subsidized child care programs have decreased, and private care centers have increased. This might have increased the reliance of working mothers on informal child care and reduced their reliance on formal child care. Using post-reform data from the Project on Rural–Urban Migration in China (RUMiC) of 2008, I estimate the effects of formal and informal child care on the labor supply of mothers of young children. A recursive model with instrumental variables is employed to account for endogeneity. I find a positive and significant impact of informal child care in the form of grandchild care on the mother's labor force participation, while no significant effect of formal child care in the form of kindergartens or paid nannies. Considering recent tendencies in China to postpone retirement, one possible method to maintain mothers' presence in the labor market could be to reinforce the availability and affordability of formal child care.²³     

Inter-vivos Transfers and Exchange

Most parents divide their bequests equally among their children, whereas inter-vivos transfers are usually unequal. We propose that exchange is better for inducing inter-vivos transfers than bequests. Inter-vivos transfers can be adjusted quickly to the amount of care, are less costly than writing a will, and can be kept secret from other family members and the public. The results from national longitudinal data show that, as expected, if a parent gives any inter-vivos transfers, she is more likely to give to children who provide informal care. Informal care has no effect on the equality of intended bequests.     

Does wealth matter? An assessment of China's rural-urban migration on the education of left-behind children

This paper decomposes the impact of parental migration on the education of children left behind. In particular, we examine whether children are enrolled in school on a timely basis according to their age when their parents are away. We found both theoretical and empirical evidence to support that parental migration generates a strong positive impact on timely enrollment if a child is from a less wealthy background. However, the effect decreases with family wealth, and reverses after reaching a threshold; we find this point using family house size as our proxy and the turning point occurs at a moderate size of approximately 148 square meters. In addition, we find a compensating effect that migrants tend to spend more on a child's education investment to offset for the loss of parental time care. Lastly, we found the overall impact of parental migration is negative on the timely enrollment of child. Thus, with the important heterogeneities attributed to wealth, our results suggest that the left behind children of more affluent parents may be pushed into worse human capital outcomes; given the rapid development of China, it may be the case that the current cohort of left behind children is less likely to be enrolled in school than earlier cohorts.     

The impact of parental education on children’s outcomes in China

This paper exploits the exogenous shock to basic education during the Chinese Cultural Revolution to estimate the causal relationship between parental schooling and children’s educational attainment in China. Using deviations of cohort graduation rates from predicted education trends as instruments for parents’ education, the results indicate that an additional year of parental education increases children’s probability of completing junior and senior high schools by 7.94 and 9.76%, respectively. Parental education not only has positive and significant effects on children’s schooling outcomes, its importance also increases with children’s education level. These findings suggest that public investment in education has important long-term effects on individual’s educational achievement.     

留守儿童的公平感与幸福度:来自实地实验与调查的依据

文章利用实地实验与调查相结合的方法,研究父母双方均外出的留守儿童与非留守儿童在公平感和幸福度上的差异。根据儿童在独裁者游戏、最后通牒游戏和问卷调查中的结果,我们发现两类儿童对优势和弱势不公平的厌恶方面不存在显著差异,但留守儿童主观汇报的幸福度显著低于非留守儿童。机制探究显示父母陪伴缺失是导致留守儿童幸福度较低的原因。若将留守儿童的定义扩大至父母一方在外务工者,以上差异均消失,说明双留守儿童是我们更应关注的群体。文章研究对补充现有留守儿童行为研究以及相应公共政策均具有重要的启示意义。     

Children's marriage and parental subjective well-being: Evidence from China

The marriage of children is a milestone event in parenthood, while how parents' well-being evolves around the time children get married is limitedly understood. This paper examines the relationship between children's marriage and parents' subjective well-being. Using China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) data, we find that parental subjective well-being is positively associated with children's marriage. An examination of the underlying mechanisms shows that, first, children's marriage can significantly enhance parents' sense of security in old-age care and their confidence in the future. Second, the older the unmarried children are, the more anxious the parents who hold stronger traditional ideology will be. Third, parents will increase their consumption expenditure after their children get married; and compared with daughters, sons' marriages have a stronger effect on parental well-being. These findings reveal that parental economic pressure due to China's biased sex ratio and marriage squeeze is relieved after their children's marriage.     

Parental Education and Child Health: Evidence from China*

This paper examines the effect of parental, household and community character‐istics on the health of children in China. We find that birth order, death of elder siblings, use of prenatal care and alcohol consumption by the mother when pregnant have statistically significant effects on the health of children. Although parental education does not have a significant direct effect on child health, it does affect mothers’ behavior during pregnancy and inflfluences the use of health inputs, indirectly impacting the health of children. The research findings have important implications for both family planning programs and broader social policies in China.     

Parental and sibling influence on study field choice: Gender-stereotypical or field preference transmission

Using respondents’ perceptions about parental and siblings’ influences on their educational decisions in the data of Taiwan Panel Survey of Family Dynamics, we found that sons’ study choices are more likely than those of daughters to be influenced by parents. In addition, females are likely to be influenced by their sisters to choose a non-science-related study field. Moreover, when fathers influence their sons’ educational decisions, sons tend to choose science-related study fields. Conversely, if mothers play a role in their sons’ educational decisions, sons are more likely to choose a non-science-related study field. From the cross-sex influences on children’s study field choice, that is, fathers’ influence on daughters and mothers’ influence on sons, we find that the effects of parents’ field preferences are stronger than the effects of parental gender stereotype. The gender of the influential family member is the key to determining whether the influenced member chooses a science or non-science study field. Furthermore, although we cannot prove a significant relationship between the degree of masculinity constructed from parents’ occupations and children’s study field choice, we show that parents play a vital role in field choice. In addition, we employ the bounding approach to show that our main findings remain robust to potential omitted-variable bias.     

Wives’ Value of Time and Food Consumed Away from Home in Taiwan*

In the present paper, we examine the relationship between wives’ value of time and expenditures on food away from home (FAFH) in Taiwan between 1983 and 2000. An endogenous switching regression model is used to model the household's consumption decision on FAFH. The empirical results show that wives’ value of time, household income, presence of young children and grandparents, and wives’ educational attainment are important factors for both participation in consuming and amount spent on FAFH. The income elasticities of FAFH have increased from 0.09 to 0.17 over the sample period. Moreover, other things being equal, the level of spending on FAFH has also increased over time. The results suggest that there has been a structural change in the consumption pattern of FAFH by families in Taiwan.     

Disparity in high school enrollment between native and immigrant children in Japan

Using nonlinear decomposition, this study examines the gap in high school enrollment between native and immigrant children based on data from the 2010 Population Census. The school attendance probability of immigrant children is significantly lower than that of native children. Factors contributing to the gap are the length of stay in Japan, parental employment status, and home ownership. The total explained part of all observable factors is approximately 30% in the comparison between native and immigrant children whose parents are both foreigners. Furthermore, immigrant children who do not attend high school are more likely to be unemployed.     

儿童初学轮滑最佳年龄探讨

以暑假期间笔者在黑龙江省儿童中心速度轮滑班教导3~8周岁幼龄儿童速度轮滑的经验与感想为依据,通过文献资料、对比分析、数理统计等方法,从儿童生理、心理及接受教学后儿童掌握轮滑的程度三个方面对其进行分析、探讨3~8周岁儿童初学速度轮滑的情况,结果显示,5~6岁是儿童初学速度轮滑的最佳年龄,男孩与女孩之间存在差异,女孩初学滑轮的年龄可以早一些,男孩稍晚一点学习。     

Family structure and home ownership: Evidence from China

This paper studies how individuals, particularly low-income individuals, have financed housing purchases since the housing market was privatized in urban China in the 1990s. To the surprise of many policy makers and economists, more than 80% of the households in urban China owned private housing by the end of 2010. In contrast to most developed countries, we find that male siblings are important borrowing resources to purchase housing. Conditional on the number of siblings, having more brothers instead of sisters increases the probability of owning housing among male individuals born during the baby boom (1949–1978) in urban China. However, there is no such brother effect for females. The brother effect is stronger for males with low income or low levels of education and is also stronger when brothers are wealthier. Our results are robust to different model specifications. Our results suggest that females are likely to be excluded from family-based informal financial market for housing purchase among baby boom generations in China.     

The effect of family planning exposure on fertility choices and reproductive health care in rural Pakistan

This paper investigates whether family planning exposure mainly through the Lady Health Worker Program has had any effect on women’s fertility choices and use of reproductive health care service in rural Pakistan, using the 2013 Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS). Exploiting variations in the program intensity across regions, we conduct instrumental variables (IV) estimation on the impact of family planning exposure on women’s fertility preferences and reproductive behaviors. Our analysis shows that even in the presence of strong son preferences in Pakistan, increasing family planning exposure reduces women’s incentive to have additional children. Moreover, family planning exposure is associated with more antenatal care visits, more deliveries performed by skilled professionals, and a greater chance of delivery at the health center. Finally, we examine the heterogeneity in the effect on fertility preference by age group and education level, and find that the effect is mainly significant for the educated and young women.