IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwphe/0303001.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Schooling and Parental Death

Author

Listed:
  • Paul Gertler

    (Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley & NBER)

  • David I. Levine

    (Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley)

  • Minnie Ames

    (Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley)

Abstract

Loss of a parent is one of the most traumatic events a child can face. If loss of a parent reduces investments in children, it can also have long-lasting implications. This study uses parametric and semi-nonparametric matching techniques to estimate how one human capital investment, school enrollment, is affected by a parent's recent death. We analyze data from 600,000 households from Indonesia's National Socioeconomic Survey (SUSENAS) during 1994-96. We find a parent's recent death has a large effect on a child's enrollment. We also use this shock to test several theories of intra-household allocation and find little differential treatment based on the gender of the child or the deceased parent.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Gertler & David I. Levine & Minnie Ames, 2003. "Schooling and Parental Death," HEW 0303001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwphe:0303001
    Note: 38 pages, Acrobat .pdf
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/hew/papers/0303/0303001.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Haddad, Lawrence & Hoddinott, John & Alderman, Harold & DEC, 1994. "Intrahousehold resource allocation : an overview," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1255, The World Bank.
    2. James J. Heckman & Hidehiko Ichimura & Petra E. Todd, 1997. "Matching As An Econometric Evaluation Estimator: Evidence from Evaluating a Job Training Programme," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(4), pages 605-654.
    3. Gary S. Becker & Nigel Tomes, 1994. "Human Capital and the Rise and Fall of Families," NBER Chapters, in: Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, Third Edition, pages 257-298, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Townsend, Robert M, 1994. "Risk and Insurance in Village India," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(3), pages 539-591, May.
    5. Robert Haveman & Barbara Wolfe, 1995. "The Determinants of Children's Attainments: A Review of Methods and Findings," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(4), pages 1829-1878, December.
    6. Elaina Rose, 1999. "Consumption Smoothing and Excess Female Mortality in Rural India," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(1), pages 41-49, February.
    7. Ashish Garg & Jonathan Morduch, 1998. "Sibling rivalry and the gender gap: Evidence from child health outcomes in Ghana," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 11(4), pages 471-493.
    8. Robert M. Townsend, 1995. "Consumption Insurance: An Evaluation of Risk-Bearing Systems in Low-Income Economies," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 83-102, Summer.
    9. Cameron, Lisa A & Worswick, Christopher, 2001. "Education Expenditure Responses to Crop Loss in Indonesia: A Gender Bias," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 49(2), pages 351-363, January.
    10. David I. Levine & Gary Painter, 2000. "The Costs of Teenage Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing: Analysis with a Within-School Propensity Score Matching Estimator," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1155, Econometric Society.
    11. Gary Chamberlain, 1980. "Analysis of Covariance with Qualitative Data," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 47(1), pages 225-238.
    12. Datcher-Loury, Linda, 1988. "Effects of Mother's Home Time on Children's Schooling," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 70(3), pages 367-373, August.
    13. Becker, Gary S & Tomes, Nigel, 1979. "An Equilibrium Theory of the Distribution of Income and Intergenerational Mobility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(6), pages 1153-1189, December.
    14. Levine, David I. & Painter, Gary, 2000. "The Costs of Teenage Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing: Analysis with a Within-School Propensity Score," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt2fr4259q, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    15. John Strauss & Paul J. Gertler & Omar Rahman & Kristin Fox, 1993. "Gender and Life-Cycle Differentials in the Patterns and Determinants of Adult Health," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 28(4), pages 791-837.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Isaac B. Oluwatayo, 2004. "Income Risk and Welfare Status of Rural Households in Nigeria: Ekiti State as a Test Case," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2004-61, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Nicolas Fleury & Fabrice Gilles, 2015. "A meta-regression analysis on intergenerational transmission of education: publication bias and genuine empirical effect," TEPP Working Paper 2015-02, TEPP.
    3. Sonia Bhalotra & Samantha Rawlings, 2013. "Gradients of the Intergenerational Transmission of Health in Developing Countries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(2), pages 660-672, May.
    4. Paul Gertler & David I. Levine & Enrico Moretti, 2009. "Do microfinance programs help families insure consumption against illness?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(3), pages 257-273, March.
    5. World Bank, 2001. "Risk Management in South Asia : A Poverty Focused Approach," World Bank Publications - Reports 15449, The World Bank Group.
    6. Monica Ospina, 2010. "CCT programs for consumption insurance: evidence from Colombia," Documentos de Trabajo de Valor Público 10612, Universidad EAFIT.
    7. Paul Gertler & Jonathan Gruber, 2002. "Insuring Consumption Against Illness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 51-70, March.
    8. Tamm, Marcus, 2008. "Does money buy higher schooling?: Evidence from secondary school track choice in Germany," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 536-545, October.
    9. Luojia Hu & Analía Schlosser, 2015. "Prenatal Sex Selection and Girls’ Well‐Being: Evidence from India," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(587), pages 1227-1261, September.
    10. Jean-Noël Senne, 2014. "Death and schooling decisions over the short and long run in rural Madagascar," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 27(2), pages 497-528, April.
    11. Liu, Kai, 2016. "Insuring against health shocks: Health insurance and household choices," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 16-32.
    12. Katarina Nordblom, 2001. "Within-the-family education and its impact on equality," Public Economics 0105004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Jean Luc De Meulemeester & Claude Diebolt, 2004. "The economies of education: unkept promises?," Brussels Economic Review, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 47(3-4), pages 303-320.
    14. Schildberg-Hoerisch, Hannah, 2011. "Does parental employment affect children's educational attainment?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 1456-1467.
    15. Holmlund, Helena & Lindahl, Mikael & Plug, Erik, 2010. "The Causal Eff ect of Parent’s Schooling on Children’s Schooling," Working Paper Series, Center for Labor Studies 2010:8, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    16. Hu, Yuan & Behrman, Jere R. & Zhang, Junsen, 2021. "The causal effects of parents’ schooling on children's schooling in urban China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 258-276.
    17. Thomas Bauer & Ira Gang, 2001. "Sibling Rivalry in Educational Attainment: The German Case," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 15(2), pages 237-255, June.
    18. Rose, Elaina, 2001. "Ex ante and ex post labor supply response to risk in a low-income area," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 371-388, April.
    19. Huong Thu Le & Ha Trong Nguyen, 2017. "Parental health and children's cognitive and noncognitive development: New evidence from the longitudinal survey of Australian children," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(12), pages 1767-1788, December.
    20. Stefan Dercon, 2002. "Income Risk, Coping Strategies, and Safety Nets," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 17(2), pages 141-166, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:wpa:wuwphe:0303001. 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: EconWPA (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    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.