IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jhucap/doi10.1086-684580.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Household Electrification, Fertility, and Employment: Evidence from Hydroelectric Dam Construction in Colombia

Author

Listed:
  • Louise Grogan

Abstract

This paper examines how household electrification in Colombia altered fertility, women’s work behavior, and children’s schooling. Estimation exploits plausibly exogenous variation in the cost of a household electric connection. The time-varying distance between a municipality and the nearest hydroelectric dam is assumed not to directly affect socioeconomic outcomes but to influence electrification rates during 1973–2005. Changes within municipalities in dam distance are used to predict changes in electrification rates in specifications including both department fixed effects with extensive municipal controls and municipal fixed effects. Household electrification is found to have reduced fertility and to have increased young children’s schooling but not to have had measurable self- or waged-employment effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Louise Grogan, 2016. "Household Electrification, Fertility, and Employment: Evidence from Hydroelectric Dam Construction in Colombia," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 10(1), pages 109-158.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jhucap:doi:10.1086/684580
    DOI: 10.1086/684580
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/684580
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/684580
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/684580?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. Grant Miller & B. Piedad Urdinola, 2010. "Cyclicality, Mortality, and the Value of Time: The Case of Coffee Price Fluctuations and Child Survival in Colombia," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(1), pages 113-155, February.
    2. Taryn Dinkelman, 2011. "The Effects of Rural Electrification on Employment: New Evidence from South Africa," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3078-3108, December.
    3. Gronau, Reuben, 1977. "Leisure, Home Production, and Work-The Theory of the Allocation of Time Revisited," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(6), pages 1099-1123, December.
    4. Lenz, Luciane & Munyehirwe, Anicet & Peters, Jörg & Sievert, Maximiliane, 2017. "Does Large-Scale Infrastructure Investment Alleviate Poverty? Impacts of Rwanda’s Electricity Access Roll-Out Program," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 88-110.
    5. Isaac Ehrlich & Jinyoung Kim, 2007. "The Evolution of Income and Fertility Inequalities over the Course of Economic Development: A Human Capital Perspective," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 137-174.
    6. van de Walle, Dominique & Ravallion, Martin & Mendiratta, Vibhuti & Koolwal, Gayatri, 2013. "Long-term impacts of household electrification in rural India," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6527, The World Bank.
    7. Grogan, Louise & Sadanand, Asha, 2013. "Rural Electrification and Employment in Poor Countries: Evidence from Nicaragua," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 252-265.
    8. Martha J. Bailey & William J. Collins, 2011. "Did Improvements in Household Technology Cause the Baby Boom? Evidence from Electrification, Appliance Diffusion, and the Amish," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 189-217, April.
    9. J�rg Peters & Christoph Strupat & Colin Vance, 2014. "Television and Contraceptive Use - A Weak Signal?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(11), pages 1538-1549, November.
    10. repec:zbw:rwirep:0555 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Rud, Juan Pablo, 2012. "Electricity provision and industrial development: Evidence from India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 352-367.
    12. Molly Lipscomb & A. Mushfiq Mobarak & Tania Barham, 2013. "Development Effects of Electrification: Evidence from the Topographic Placement of Hydropower Plants in Brazil," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 200-231, April.
    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. Simone Tagliapietra & Giovanni Occhiali & Enrico Nano & Robert Kalcik, 2020. "The impact of electrification on labour market outcomes in Nigeria," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 37(3), pages 737-779, October.
    2. Fujii, Tomoki & Shonchoy, Abu S., 2020. "Fertility and rural electrification in Bangladesh," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    3. Fujii, Tomoki & Shonchoy, Abu S. & Xu, Sijia, 2018. "Impact of Electrification on Children’s Nutritional Status in Rural Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 315-330.
    4. Jose Cuesta & Mario Negre & Ana Revenga & Maika Schmidt, 2018. "Tackling Income Inequality: What Works and Why?," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 26(1), pages 1-48, March.
    5. Enrico Nano, 2022. "Electrifying Nigeria: the Impact of Rural Access to Electricity on Kids' Schooling," IHEID Working Papers 03-2022, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    6. Richard S. J. Tol, 2023. "Navigating the energy trilemma during geopolitical and environmental crises," Papers 2301.07671, arXiv.org.
    7. Adrien Fabre & Thomas Douenne & Linus Mattauch, 2023. "International Attitudes Toward Global Policies," Working Papers 2023.01, FAERE - French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
    8. Aparajita Dasgupta & Anahita Karandikar & Devvrat Raghav, 2022. "Road Access, Fertility and Child Health in Rural India," Working Papers 86, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    9. Bayer, Patrick & Kennedy, Ryan & Yang, Joonseok & Urpelainen, Johannes, 2020. "The need for impact evaluation in electricity access research," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    10. Aparajita Dasgupta & Anahita Karandikar & Devvrat Raghav, 2024. "Road Access, Fertility, and Child Health in Rural India," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 50(1), pages 117-147, March.

    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. Grogan, Louise, 2018. "Time use impacts of rural electrification: Longitudinal evidence from Guatemala," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 304-317.
    2. Bensch, Gunther & Gotz, Gunnar & Peters, Jörg, 2020. "Effects of rural electrification on employment: A comment on Dinkelman (2011)," Ruhr Economic Papers 840, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    3. Fujii, Tomoki & Shonchoy, Abu S., 2020. "Fertility and rural electrification in Bangladesh," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    4. Richmond, Jennifer & Urpelainen, Johannes, 2019. "Electrification and appliance ownership over time: Evidence from rural India," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    5. Deutschmann, Joshua W. & Postepska, Agnieszka & Sarr, Leopold, 2021. "Measuring willingness to pay for reliable electricity: Evidence from Senegal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    6. Aditi Bhattacharyya & Daisy Das & Arkadipta Ghosh, 2017. "Electrification and Welfare of Poor Households in Rural India," Working Papers 1702, Sam Houston State University, Department of Economics and International Business.
    7. Rosamaría Dasso & Fernando Fernandez, 2015. "The effects of electrification on employment in rural Peru," IZA Journal of Labor & Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-16, December.
    8. Jorg PETERS & Maximiliane SIEVERT, 2017. "Impacts of Rural Electrification Revisited: The African Context," Working Paper 685bbfec-4828-4aa0-832a-4, Agence française de développement.
    9. Wagner, Natascha & Rieger, Matthias & Bedi, Arjun S. & Vermeulen, Jurgen & Demena, Binyam Afewerk, 2021. "The impact of off-grid solar home systems in Kenya on energy consumption and expenditures," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    10. Obsa Urgessa Ayana & Jima Degaga, 2022. "Effects of rural electrification on household welfare: a meta-regression analysis," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 69(2), pages 209-261, June.
    11. Alice Tianbo Zhang & Sasmita Patnaik & Shaily Jha & Shalu Agrawal & Carlos F. Gould & Johannes Urpelainen, 2022. "Evidence of multidimensional gender inequality in energy services from a large-scale household survey in India," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 7(8), pages 698-707, August.
    12. Lisa CHAUVET & Alvaro DE MIGUEL TORRES & Alexa TIEMANN, 2018. "Electricity and manufacturing firm profits in Myanmar," Working Papers P214, FERDI.
    13. Bayer, Patrick & Kennedy, Ryan & Yang, Joonseok & Urpelainen, Johannes, 2020. "The need for impact evaluation in electricity access research," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    14. Santosh Kumar & Ganesh Rauniyar, 2018. "The impact of rural electrification on income and education: Evidence from Bhutan," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(3), pages 1146-1165, August.
    15. Briggs, Ryan C., 2021. "Power to which people? Explaining how electrification targets voters across party rotations in Ghana," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    16. Gupta, Ridhima & Pelli, Martino, 2021. "Electrification and cooking fuel choice in rural India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    17. Huang, Ruting & Yao, Xin, 2023. "The role of power transmission infrastructure in income inequality: Fresh evidence from China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    18. Michael Grimm & Anicet Munyehirwe & Jörg Peters & Maximiliane Sievert, 2017. "A First Step up the Energy Ladder? Low Cost Solar Kits and Household’s Welfare in Rural Rwanda," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 31(3), pages 631-649.
    19. Eliana Carranza & Robyn Meeks, 2021. "Energy Efficiency and Electricity Reliability," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(3), pages 461-475, July.
    20. Meeks, Robyn C. & Omuraliev, Arstan & Isaev, Ruslan & Wang, Zhenxuan, 2023. "Impacts of electricity quality improvements: Experimental evidence on infrastructure investments," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).

    More about this item

    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:ucp:jhucap:doi:10.1086/684580. 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JHC .

    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.