Harvard Institute for International Development HARVARD UNIVERSITY Development Discussion
نویسندگان
چکیده
Nearly all economic models of the household have implications for how characteristics of the children in a family affect human capital investments in their siblings. Much evidence suggests that perceived returns to investing in sons is higher than investing in daughters in many economies (often due to cultural practices rather than inherent productivity differences). When this is so – and where credit and labor markets function imperfectly – implicit rivalries will emerge, even where no family member behaves strategically. As a result, children will fare better when a greater fraction of their siblings are female rather than male. This tendency is tempered by positive spillovers to human capital investments that produce opposite results. Data from a large household-level data set from Ghana yields predictions that enrollments in secondary schooling improve by over 50% when children move to all-sister households from allbrother households. Similarly, measures of health outcomes would increase by 30% to 40% under the same change. The results suggest that improving market conditions can greatly increase human capital investments, even when a family’s lifetime resources remain unchanged. JEL Classification: I12 , J16, J24, 012
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