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Female Household-Headship in Rural Bangladesh: Incidence, Determinants and Impact on Children's Schooling Shareen Joshi

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  • Shareen Joshi

Abstract

This paper uses data from Matlab, Bangladesh to examine the characteristics of female-headed households and estimate the impact of female-headship on children's schooling. Female householdheads in Matlab fall into two broad groups: widows and married women, most of whom are wives of migrants. These women differ from each other not only in their current socio-economic circumstances, but also in their backgrounds and circumstances prior to getting married. To identify the effects of female-headship on children's outcomes, I use a two-stage least squares strategy that controls for the possible endogeneity of both types of female-headship. Results indicate that children residing in households headed by married women have stronger schooling attainments than children in other households, while children of widows are more likely to work outside the home. The hypothesis of exogeneity of female-headship is rejected in most cases.

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  • Shareen Joshi, 2004. "Female Household-Headship in Rural Bangladesh: Incidence, Determinants and Impact on Children's Schooling Shareen Joshi," Working Papers 894, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    • Handle: RePEc:egc:wpaper:894
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    1. Do, Q-T & Iyer, S. & Joshi, S., 2006. "The Economics of Consanguinity," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0653, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    2. Tariq Mahmood & Najam us Saqib & Muhammad Ali Qasim, 2017. "Parental Effects on Primary School Enrolment under Different Types of Household Headship: Evidence from Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 56(3), pages 249-264.
    3. Erica Field & Attila Ambrus, 2008. "Early Marriage, Age of Menarche, and Female Schooling Attainment in Bangladesh," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(5), pages 881-930, October.
    4. Quy-Toan Do & Sriya Iyer & Shareen Joshi, 2013. "The Economics of Consanguineous Marriages," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(3), pages 904-918, July.
    5. Mai, Nhat Chi, 2013. "Essays on Farm Household Decision-Making: Evidence from Vietnam," OSF Preprints 96azx, Center for Open Science.
    6. Khan, Adnan & Mrs, Sultana, 2020. "International Migration Literature Search in Bangladesh during the period of 1971-2020," MPRA Paper 108328, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2020.
    7. Khan, Adnan, 2020. "A Bibliography Search on International Migration and Remittances Literature during the period of 1971-2020: A Case of Bangladesh," MPRA Paper 108143, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2020.
    8. H. Arokkiaraj & Archana Kaushik & S. Irudaya Rajan, 2021. "Effects of International Male Migration on Wives Left Behind in Rural Tamil Nadu," Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Centre for Women's Development Studies, vol. 28(2), pages 228-247, June.
    9. Marcel Fafchamps & Agnes R. Quisumbing & IFPRI, 2006. "Household Formation and Marriage Markets," Economics Series Working Papers GPRG-WPS-039, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    10. Ryan Mason & Patrick Ndlovu & John Parkins & Marty Luckert, 2015. "Determinants of food security in Tanzania: gendered dimensions of household headship and control of resources," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 32(3), pages 539-549, September.
    11. Kathryn Sproule & Caitlin Kieran & Agnes Quisumbing & Cheryl Doss, 2015. "Gender, Headship, and the Life Cycle: Landownership in Four Asian Countries," Working Papers id:7807, eSocialSciences.
    12. Saima Nawaz & Nasir Iqbal, 2016. "Education Poverty in Pakistan: A Spatial Analysis at District Level," Indian Journal of Human Development, , vol. 10(2), pages 270-287, August.
    13. Mansuri, Ghazala, 2006. "Migration, school attainment, and child labor : evidence from rural Pakistan," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3945, The World Bank.
    14. Ambrus, Attila & Field, Erica, 2008. "Early Marriage, Age of Menarche, and Female Schooling Attainment in Bangladesh," Scholarly Articles 3200264, Harvard University Department of Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Female-headed Households; Widowhood; Migration; Schooling;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

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