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89 JOURNAL OF POPULATION ECONOMICS, 1998, Vol. 11, N° 4
"Gender Issues in Developing Countries", Editors: Ira N. Gang and T. Paul Schultz
00.89.1 - DEOLALIKAR, Anil; ROSE, Elaina.
Gender and savings in rural India.
In this study we use data from rural India to examine the impact of the birth of a boy relative to the birth of a girl (i.e., the "gender shock") on the savings, consumption and income of rural Indian households. We find that the gender shock reduces savings for medium and large farm households, although there is no evidence that the shock affects savings for the landless and the small farm households. We also estimate the effect of the shock on income and consumption for the former group in order to determine the source of the drop in savings. The results indicate that the fall in savings subsequent to the gender shock arises from its effect on consumption in the year following the birth, and from its effect on income in other years.
English - pp. 453-470.
A. Deolalikar and E. Rose, Department of Economics, MC 353330, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, U.S.A.
anil@u.washington.edu.
(INDIA, RURAL ENVIRONMENT, ECONOMIC DEMOGRAPHY, BIRTH, SEX DIFFERENTIALS, SAVINGS, FAMILY CONSUMPTION, HOUSEHOLD INCOME.)
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00.89.2 - GARG, Ashish; MORDUCH, Jonathan.
Sibling rivalry and the gender gap: Evidence from child health outcomes in Ghana.
When capital and labor markets are imperfect, choice sets narrow, and parents must choose how to ration available funds and time between their children. One consequence is that children become rivals for household resources. In economies with pro-male bias, such rivalries can yield gains to having relatively more sisters than brothers. Using a rich household survey from Ghana, we find that on average if children had all sisters (and no brothers) they would do roughly 25-40% better on measured health indicators than if they had all brothers (and no sisters). The effects are as large as typical quantity-quality trade-offs, and they do not differ significantly by gender.
English - pp. 471-493.
J. Morduch, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, U.S.A.
jmorduch@princeton.edu.
(GHANA, MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH, FAMILY COMPOSITION, BROTHERS, SISTERS, RESOURCE ALLOCATION.)
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00.89.3 - HAUGHTON, Jonathan; HAUGHTON, Dominique.
Are simple tests of son preference useful? An evaluation using data from Vietnam.
Son preference is widespread although not universal. Where it occurs it may lead to higher fertility rates. Ideally son preference should be measured in the context of a hazards or parity progression model of fertility, or a logistic model of contraceptive use. Such models require large amounts of survey data, particularly to measure the covariates. Can son preference be discerned reliably using tests which rely on more limited information? The answer is yes, based on applying eight simple tests to data from the Vietnam Living Standards Survey of 1992-93 and comparing the outcomes with the benchmark results from fuller models. Some, but not all, of the simpler tests accurately measure son preference, including estimating a simple hazards or progression parity model, the unisex sibship test, and the sibling differentials test.
English - pp. 495-516.
J. Haughton, Department of Economics, Suffolk University, Boston, MA 02114, U.S.A.
haughton@world.std.com.
(VIET NAM, SEX PREFERENCE, METHODOLOGY, MEASUREMENT, MODELS.)
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00.89.4 - BLACKBURN, Keith; CIPRIANI, Giam Pietro.
Endogenous fertility, mortality and growth.
Economic and demographic outcomes are determined jointly in a choice-theoretic model of fertility, mortality and capital accumulation. There is an endogenous population of reproductive agents who belong to dynastic families of overlapping generations connected through altruism. In addition to choosing savings and births, parents may reduce (infant) deaths by incurring expenditures on health-care which is also provided by the government. A generalised production technology accounts for long-run endogenous growth with short-run transitional dynamics. The analysis yields testable time series and cross-section implications which accord with the empirical evidence on the relationship between demography and development.
English - pp. 517-534.
K. Blackburn and G. P. Cipriani, School of Economic Studies, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, U.K.
keith.blackburn@man.ac.uk; msrbgpc@fs1.ec.man.ac.uk.
(ECONOMIC DEMOGRAPHY, FERTILITY, MORTALITY, MODELS, CAPITAL FORMATION.)
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00.89.5 - STEINMANN, Gunter; PRSKAWETZ, Alexia; FEICHTINGER, Gustav.
A model on the escape from the Malthusian trap.
We consider a demoeconomic model where output is produced using physical capital, human capital and technology as inputs. Human capital depends on the number of people and the level of education in the economy. The dynamics of labour, physical capital, education and technology are endogenously determined such as to reflect the interdependence between economic and demographic factors. The longrun path of the economy and in particular the possibility to escape the Malthusian trap crucially depend on technological progress, which provides for economy wide increasing returns to scale. The build up of technology is positively related to the stock of human capital. Our model predicts that positive population growth is sufficient to escape the Malthusian trap.
English - pp. 535-550.
G. Steinmann, Department of Economics, Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Grosse Steinstrasse 73, D-06108 Halle/Saale, Germany.
(ECONOMIC DEMOGRAPHY, MODELS, HUMAN RESOURCES, TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE, POPULATION GROWTH.)
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00.89.6 - KALWIJ, Adriaan; ALESSIE, Rob; FONTEIN, Peter.
Household commodity demand and demographics in the Netherlands: A microeconometric analysis.
We investigate the effects of demographics, household expenditure and female employment on the allocation of household expenditure to consumer goods. For this purpose we estimate an Almost Ideal Demand System based on Dutch micro data. We find that interactions between household expenditure and demographics are of significant importance in explaining the allocation to consumer goods. As a consequence, consumer goods such as housing and clothing change with demographic characteristics from luxuries to necessities. Furthermore, this implies that budget and price-elasticities cannot be consistently estimated from aggregated data and that equivalence scales are not identified from budget survey data alone. We reject weak separability of consumer goods from female employment. A couple with an employed spouse has a smaller budget share for housing and personal care and a larger budget share for education, recreation and transport and clothing compared to a couple with a non-employed spouse.
English - pp. 551-577.
A. Kalwij, Center for Economic Research and Economics Institute Tilburg, Tilburg University, P.O. Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, Netherlands.
kalwij@kub.nl; alessie@kub.nl; fontein@kub.nl.
(ECONOMIC DEMOGRAPHY, POPULATION DYNAMICS, FAMILY BUDGET, CONSUMER GOODS, FEMALE EMPLOYMENT, METHODOLOGY.)
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00.89.7 - DOCQUIER, Frédéric; RAPOPORT, Hillel.
Are migrant minorities strategically self-selected?.
In this paper we focus on the possibility of migrants' self-selection through strategic remittances. We argue that migrants of a specific community might be pooled with migrants from other ethnic minorities on the labor market of the foreign host country and that this could reduce the occurrence of strategic remittances. In a simple model with two types of workers, skilled and unskilled, facing two possible actions, to migrate or not to migrate, we derive the theoretical conditions under which strategic transfers are still operating when pooling among communities is introduced. We then show through numerical illustrations that the case for strategic transfers is rather weak when using realistic values for the main parameters of the model.
English - pp. 579-588.
F. Docquier and H. Rapoport, CADRE, Université de Lille-2, F-59000 Lille, France.
hillel@mail.biu.ac.il.
(IMMIGRANTS, ETHNIC MINORITIES, REMITTANCES, MODELS.)
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The effect of emigration on human capital formation.
This paper focuses on a possible effect of emigration on human capital formation. Emigration to a higher returns to skill country provides an incentive to invest in human capital. The level of human capital formation in the source country can therefore be positively correlated with the probability of emigration. Incidentally a surge in emigration can lead the source country out of an under-development trap. The implications of the model for the convergence controversy are also discussed.
English - pp. 589-600.
J.-P. Vidal, GREQAM-CNRS, 2 rue de la Charité, F-13002 Marseille, France.
(EMIGRATION, HUMAN RESOURCES, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, MODELS.)
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