IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/oec/devaaa/217-en.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Impact of Education on Fertility and Child Mortality: Do Fathers Really Matter Less Than Mothers?

Author

Listed:
  • Lucia Breierova
  • Esther Duflo

Abstract

This paper takes advantage of a massive school construction program that took place in Indonesia between 1973 and 1978 to estimate the effect of education on fertility and child mortality. Time and region varying exposure to the school construction program generates instrumental variables for the average education in the household, and the difference in education between husband and wife. We show that female education is a stronger determinant of age at marriage and early fertility than male education. However, female and male education seem equally important factors in reducing child mortality. We suggest that the OLS estimate of the differential effect of women’s and men’s education may be biased by failure to take in to account assortative matching ... Ce document profite d’un programme massif de construction d’écoles mis en œuvre en Indonésie entre 1973 et 1978 pour déterminer les effets de l’éducation sur la fertilité et la mortalité infantile. L’impact changeant, dans le temps et dans les régions, de ce programme de construction d’écoles produit des variables instrumentales pour le niveau d’éducation moyen du ménage et pour les différences de niveau entre le mari et la femme. Les auteurs montrent que l’éducation des filles a davantage d’influence sur l’âge du mariage et du premier enfant que l’éducation des garçons. Cela étant, l’éducation des filles et des garçons semble avoir le même impact sur la réduction de la mortalité infantile. Les auteurs indiquent que l’estimation par les moindres carrés ordinaires de l’impact différentiel de l’éducation des femmes et des hommes pourrait bien être biaisée par l’incapacité à tenir compte de la constitution des couples par affinité sociale ...

Suggested Citation

  • Lucia Breierova & Esther Duflo, 2003. "The Impact of Education on Fertility and Child Mortality: Do Fathers Really Matter Less Than Mothers?," OECD Development Centre Working Papers 217, OECD Publishing.
    • Handle: RePEc:oec:devaaa:217-en
    DOI: 10.1787/325632465160
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1787/325632465160
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1787/325632465160?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rosenzweig, Mark R. & Wolpin, Kenneth I., 1988. "Migration selectivity and the effects of public programs," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 265-289, December.
    2. Heckman, J.J. & Hotz, V.J., 1988. "Choosing Among Alternative Nonexperimental Methods For Estimating The Impact Of Social Programs: The Case Of Manpower Training," University of Chicago - Economics Research Center 88-12, Chicago - Economics Research Center.
    3. 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.
    4. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    5. 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, vol. 7(3), pages 319-348, September.
    6. 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.
    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. Esther Duflo, 2001. "Schooling and Labor Market Consequences of School Construction in Indonesia: Evidence from an Unusual Policy Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 795-813, September.
    2. Sinha, Nistha, 2003. "Fertility, Child Work and Schooling Consequences of Family Planning Programs: Evidence from an Experiment in Rural Bangladesh," Center Discussion Papers 28457, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    3. Frempong, Raymond Boadi & Kitzmüller, Lucas & Stadelmann, David, 2021. "A micro-based approach to evaluate the effect of water supply on health in Uganda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    4. Nistha Sinha, 2003. "Fertility, Child Work and Schooling Consequences of Family Planning Programs: Evidence from an Experiment in Rural Bangladesh," Working Papers 867, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    5. repec:ucp:ecdecc:y:2005:v:54:i:1:p:165-201 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Frankenberg, E. & Thomas, D., 2000. "Women's Health and Pregnancy Outcomes: Does Access to Services Make a Difference?," Papers 00-04, RAND - Labor and Population Program.
    7. Portner, Claus C & Beegle, Kathleen & Christiaensen, Luc, 2011. "Family planning and fertility : estimating program effects using cross-sectional data," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5812, The World Bank.
    8. repec:ucp:ecdecc:v:58:y:2010:i:4:p:739-774 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. repec:ucp:ecdecc:doi:10.1086/666950 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Grönqvist, Hans, 2009. "Putting teenagers on the pill: the consequences of subsidized contraception," Working Paper Series 2009:8, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    11. Grant Miller, 2005. "Contraception as Development? New Evidence from Family Planning in Colombia," CID Working Papers 9, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    12. Christopher J. Cronin & David K. Guilkey & Ilene S. Speizer, 2018. "The effects of health facility access and quality on family planning decisions in urban Senegal," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(3), pages 576-591, March.
    13. Giles, John & Satriawan, Elan, 2015. "Protecting child nutritional status in the aftermath of a financial crisis: Evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 97-106.
    14. World Bank, 2007. "Ethiopia - Capturing the Demographic Bonus in Ethiopia : Gender, Development, and Demographic Actions," World Bank Publications - Reports 7823, The World Bank Group.
    15. Christopher McKelvey & Duncan Thomas & Elizabeth Frankenberg, 2011. "Fertility Regulation in an Economic Crisis," Working Papers id:4449, eSocialSciences.
    16. Hammer, Jeffrey S, 1997. "Economic Analysis for Health Projects," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 12(1), pages 47-71, February.
    17. 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.
    18. Jaikishan Desai & Alessandro Tarozzi, 2011. "Microcredit, Family Planning Programs, and Contraceptive Behavior: Evidence From a Field Experiment in Ethiopia," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(2), pages 749-782, May.
    19. Michael Grimm & Robert Sparrow & Luca Tasciotti, 2015. "Does Electrification Spur the Fertility Transition? Evidence From Indonesia," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(5), pages 1773-1796, October.
    20. Hatton, Timothy J. & Sparrow, Robert & Suryadarma, Daniel & van der Eng, Pierre, 2018. "Fertility and the health of children in Indonesia," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 67-78.
    21. Jere R. Behrman & John Hoddinott, 2005. "Programme Evaluation with Unobserved Heterogeneity and Selective Implementation: The Mexican PROGRESA Impact on Child Nutrition," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 67(4), pages 547-569, August.
    22. Annarita Macchioni Giaquinto, 2022. "The power of the (red) pill in Europe: pharmaceutical innovation and female empowerment," Working Papers 2022:09, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    23. García-Prado, Ariadna & González, Paula & Rebollo-Sanz, Yolanda F., 2022. "Lockdown strictness and mental health effects among older populations in Europe," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I22 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Educational Finance; Financial Aid

    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:oec:devaaa:217-en. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dcoecfr.html .

    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.