IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/femeco/v12y2006i4p561-597.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tackling The Endogeneity Of Fertility In The Study Of Women'S Employment In Developing Countries: Alternative Estimation Strategies Using Data From Urban Brazil

Author

Listed:
  • Rachel Connelly
  • Deborah DeGraff
  • Deborah Levison
  • Brian McCall

Abstract

Opinions differ about whether family structure, especially fertility, should be considered endogenous in models of behavior in developing countries. Faced with a dearth of good instruments, mainstream researchers often urge working in reduced form and, therefore, losing variables of policy interest or limiting the type of questions they ask to those where good instruments are available. Rather than treating endogeneity as a yes or no characteristic, we suggest instead that researchers consider the likely magnitude of endogeneity bias before moving to reduced form. Facing a situation where endogeneity bias is often presented as a concern but where we expect little endogeneity bias, we tackle endogeneity using multiple econometric techniques not available to the average researcher. We find support for our hypothesis that little bias arises due to the assumption of exogeneity of recent fertility in a model of women's employment.

Suggested Citation

  • Rachel Connelly & Deborah DeGraff & Deborah Levison & Brian McCall, 2006. "Tackling The Endogeneity Of Fertility In The Study Of Women'S Employment In Developing Countries: Alternative Estimation Strategies Using Data From Urban Brazil," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(4), pages 561-597.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:femeco:v:12:y:2006:i:4:p:561-597
    DOI: 10.1080/13545700600885263
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13545700600885263
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13545700600885263?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wu, De-Min, 1973. "Alternative Tests of Independence Between Stochastic Regressors and Disturbances," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(4), pages 733-750, July.
    2. McCall, Brian P, 1996. "Unemployment Insurance Rules, Joblessness, and Part-Time Work," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(3), pages 647-682, May.
    3. Hall, Alastair R & Rudebusch, Glenn D & Wilcox, David W, 1996. "Judging Instrument Relevance in Instrumental Variables Estimation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 37(2), pages 283-298, May.
    4. McCall, Brian P., 1992. "A note on the identifiability of a dynamic binary choice model with state dependence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 273-280, November.
    5. Paul Gertler & John Molyneaux, 1994. "How economic development and family planning programs combined to reduce indonesian fertility," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 31(1), pages 33-63, February.
    6. Nelson, Julie A, 1994. "I, Thou, and Them: Capabilities, Altruism, and Norms in the Economics of Marriage," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 126-131, May.
    7. Hausman, Jerry, 2015. "Specification tests in econometrics," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 38(2), pages 112-134.
    8. Janet Netz & Jon Haveman, 1999. "All In The Family: Family, Income, And Labor Force Attachment," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(3), pages 85-106.
    9. Jejeebhoy, Shireen J., 1995. "Women's Education, Autonomy, and Reproductive Behaviour: Experience from Developing Countries," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198290339.
    10. David Lam & Suzanne Duryea, 1999. "Effects of Schooling on Fertility, Labor Supply, and Investments in Children, with Evidence from Brazil," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 34(1), pages 160-192.
    11. Rosenzweig, Mark R & Wolpin, Kenneth I, 1980. "Testing the Quantity-Quality Fertility Model: The Use of Twins as a Natural Experiment," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(1), pages 227-240, January.
    12. Connelly, Rachel & DeGraff, Deborah S & Levison, Deborah, 1996. "Women's Employment and Child Care in Brazil," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(3), pages 619-656, April.
    13. Heckman, James J, 1990. "Varieties of Selection Bias," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 313-318, May.
    14. Robert Moffitt, 2005. "Remarks on the analysis of causal relationships in population research," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 42(1), pages 91-108, February.
    15. Daniel Klepinger & Shelly Lundberg & Robert Plotnick, 1999. "How Does Adolescent Fertility Affect the Human Capital and Wages of Young Women?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 34(3), pages 421-448.
    16. Bronars, Stephen G & Grogger, Jeff, 1994. "The Economic Consequences of Unwed Motherhood: Using Twin Births as a Natural Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1141-1156, December.
    17. David C. Ribar, 1999. "The socioeconomic consequences of young women's childbearing: Reconciling disparate evidence," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 12(4), pages 547-565.
    18. Ainsworth, Martha & Beegle, Kathleen & Nyamete, Andrew, 1996. "The Impact of Women's Schooling on Fertility and Contraceptive Use: A Study of Fourteen Sub-Saharan African Countries," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 10(1), pages 85-122, January.
    19. Angrist, Joshua D & Evans, William N, 1998. "Children and Their Parents' Labor Supply: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Family Size," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 450-477, June.
    20. Joyce P. Jacobsen & James Wishart Pearce III & Joshua L. Rosenbloom, 1999. "The Effects of Childbearing on Married Women's Labor Supply and Earnings: Using Twin Births as a Natural Experiment," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 34(3), pages 449-474.
    21. Chamberlain, Gary, 1986. "Asymptotic efficiency in semi-parametric models with censoring," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 189-218, July.
    22. Deborah Degraff & Richard Bilsborrow & David Guilkey, 1997. "Community-level determinants of contraceptive use in the Philippines: A structural analysis," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 34(3), pages 385-398, August.
    23. Mroz, Thomas A, 1987. "The Sensitivity of an Empirical Model of Married Women's Hours of Work to Economic and Statistical Assumptions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(4), pages 765-799, July.
    24. Xiaodi Xie, 1997. "Children and female labour supply behaviour," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(10), pages 1303-1310.
    25. John Shea, 1997. "Instrument Relevance in Multivariate Linear Models: A Simple Measure," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(2), pages 348-352, May.
    26. Kenneth Bollen & David Guilkey & Thomas Mroz, 1995. "Binary outcomes and endogenous explanatory variables: Tests and solutions with an application to the demand for contraceptive use in tunisia," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 32(1), pages 111-131, February.
    27. Pitt, Mark M & Rosenzweig, Mark R & Gibbons, Donna M, 1993. "The Determinants and Consequences of the Placement of Government Programs in Indonesia," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 7(3), pages 319-348, September.
    28. Connelly, Rachel, 1992. "The Effect of Child Care Costs on Married Women's Labor Force Participation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(1), pages 83-90, February.
    29. Paul Gertler & Jack Molyneaux, 1994. "Erratum to: How Economic Development and Family Planning Programs Combined to Reduce Indonesian Fertility," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 31(2), pages 1-1, May.
    30. Schuler, Sidney Ruth & Hashemi, Syed Mesbahuddin & Riley, Ann P., 1997. "The influence of women's changing roles and status in Bangladesh's fertility transition: Evidence from a study of credit programs and contraceptive use," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 563-575, January.
    31. Peter Kennedy, 2003. "A Guide to Econometrics, 5th Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 5, volume 1, number 026261183x, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Suwastika Naidu, 2016. "Does Human Development Influence Women’s Labour Force Participation Rate? Evidences from the Fiji Islands," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 127(3), pages 1067-1084, July.
    2. Dante Contreras & Agustin Hurtado & M. Francisca Sara, 2012. "La Excepción Chilena y las Percepciones de Género en la Participación Laboral Femenina," Working Papers wp374, University of Chile, Department of Economics.
    3. Echávarri Aguinaga, Rebeca, 2009. "Education and the dynamics of family decisions," DFAEII Working Papers 1988-088X, University of the Basque Country - Department of Foundations of Economic Analysis II.
    4. Margaret Maurer-Fazio & Rachel Connelly & Lan Chen & Lixin Tang, 2011. "Childcare, Eldercare, and Labor Force Participation of Married Women in Urban China, 1982–2000," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 46(2), pages 261-294.
    5. Grimshaw, Damian. & Rubery, Jill., 2015. "The motherhood pay gap : a review of the issues, theory and international evidence," ILO Working Papers 994873763402676, International Labour Organization.
    6. van der Stoep, Gabrielle, 2008. "Childbearing and labour force participation in South Africa: sibling composition as an identification strategy?," MPRA Paper 52908, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. De Hoop, Thomas & Van Kempen, Luuk & Linssen, Rik & Van Eerdewijk, Anouka, 2010. "Women's Autonomy and Subjective Well-Being in India: How Village Norms Shape the Impact of Self-Help Groups," MPRA Paper 25921, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. repec:ilo:ilowps:487376 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Ding, Sai & Dong, Xiao-Yuan & Maurer-Fazio, Margaret, 2016. "How Do Pre-School and/or School-Age Children Affect Parents' Likelihood of Migration and Off-Farm Work in Rural China's Minority Regions?," IZA Discussion Papers 10073, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vida Maralani, 2008. "The changing relationship between family size and educational attainment over the course of socioeconomic development: Evidence from Indonesia," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 45(3), pages 693-717, August.
    2. Schultz, T. Paul, 2008. "Population Policies, Fertility, Women's Human Capital, and Child Quality," Handbook of Development Economics, in: T. Paul Schultz & John A. Strauss (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 52, pages 3249-3303, Elsevier.
    3. Damian Clarke, 2018. "Children And Their Parents: A Review Of Fertility And Causality," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 518-540, April.
    4. Joshua D. Angrist, 2004. "Treatment effect heterogeneity in theory and practice," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(494), pages 52-83, March.
    5. Guilhem Bascle, 2008. "Controlling for endogeneity with instrumental variables in strategic management research," Post-Print hal-00576795, HAL.
    6. Grant Miller, 2005. "Contraception as Development? New Evidence from Family Planning in Colombia," CID Working Papers 9, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    7. Aniceto C. Orbeta & Jr., 2005. "Children and the Labor Force Participation and Earnings of Parents in the Philippines," Development Economics Working Papers 22670, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    8. Kevin Stange, 2011. "A Longitudinal Analysis of the Relationship Between Fertility Timing and Schooling," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(3), pages 931-956, August.
    9. Krzysztof Karbownik & Michal Myck, 2012. "For Some Mothers More than Others: How Children Matter for Labour Market Outcomes When Both Fertility and Female Employment Are Low," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1208, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    10. Patralekha Ukil, 2015. "Effect of Fertility on Female Labour Force Participation in the United Kingdom," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 9(2), pages 109-132, May.
    11. Anna Baranowska-Rataj & Anna Matysiak, 2016. "The Causal Effects of the Number of Children on Female Employment - Do European Institutional and Gender Conditions Matter?," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 343-367, September.
    12. Jungho Kim, 2010. "Women's Education and Fertility: An Analysis of the Relationship between Education and Birth Spacing in Indonesia," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(4), pages 739-774, July.
    13. Ewa Cukrowska-Torzewska, 2015. "She Cares and He Earns? The Family Gap in Poland," Ekonomia journal, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw, vol. 42.
    14. Paul J. Devereux & Sandra E. Black & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2004. "The more the merrier? The effect of family composition on children's education," Open Access publications 10197/735, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    15. Sandra E. Black & Paul J. Devereux & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2005. "The More the Merrier? The Effect of Family Size and Birth Order on Children's Education," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 120(2), pages 669-700.
    16. Gustavo Angeles & David K. Guilkey & Thomas A. Mroz, 2005. "The Impact of Community-Level Variables on Individual-Level Outcomes," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 34(1), pages 76-121, August.
    17. Mahdi Majbouri, 2019. "Twins, family size and female labour force participation in Iran," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(4), pages 387-397, January.
    18. Nieto, Adrián, 2021. "Native-immigrant differences in the effect of children on the gender pay gap," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 654-680.
    19. T. Paul Schultz, 2005. "Fertility and Income," Working Papers 925, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    20. DeGraff, Deborah S. & Wong, Rebeca, 2014. "Modeling old-age wealth with endogenous early-life outcomes: The case of Mexico," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 3(C), pages 58-70.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economics of the family; female labor-force participation; fertility; household models; endogeneity; JEL Codes: D1; D;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:femeco:v:12:y:2006:i:4:p:561-597. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RFEC20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.