The effect of female migration on infant and child survival in Uganda

This article uses data from the 1996 Uganda Demographic and Health Survey to examine whether migration of women improves the survival chances of their children to age five. We expand on prior research by testing not only the hypothesized positive effect of rural-urban migration, but also the effects of other migration stream behaviours on child survival. Results show that up to 10% of children die before age five and within-group differences in mortality exist among urban and rural children depending on their mother's migration status. Only urban-urban migration was significantly related to child survival, compared to rural non-migrants, after controlling for other factors, although other streams of migration (rural-urban, urban-rural, rural-rural) were positively related to child survival. Generally, migration explains a small component of the variance in child survival. Several other factors, including parents' education, household size, household headship, mother's age at birth, duration of breastfeeding, and place of delivery have a significant predictive power on child survival.     

Childhood Mortality Estimates Using the Preceding Birth Technique: Some Applications and Extensions

The Preceding Birth Technique has proved to be a simple and effective way of estimating mortality during the first two years of life when the question on the survival of the preceding child is asked at the time of a subsequent delivery. This article shows first that earlier worries about significant biases in the estimates are unfounded. Amongst the possible sources of bias considered are: the link between birth-interval length and child survival; the effects of birth intervals differing from 30 months; and the contribution of other systematic biases, such as the omission of all reports on the survival of a woman's last child. Results from a trial in the maternity clinics in Bamako, Mali are presented to illustrate both practical aspects of the method and selection effects by age and parity. A strong association between the survival chances of the succession of children born to one mother emerges. The second part of the article describes how the method can be applied more widely by asking the key questions at times other than a subsequent delivery. Adjustment factors are developed to correct for the biases introduced when the sample includes only mothers whose last-born children are alive at interview.Finally, some examples are given of recent use of the question on the survival of the preceding child in household surveys.     

Household income and child survival in Egypt

This article uses household-level economic and fertility survey data to examine the relationship between household income and child survival in Egypt. Income has little effect on infant mortality but is inversely related to mortality in early childhood. The relationship persists with other associated socioeconomic variables controlled. The mechanisms underlying the income effects are not evident from this analysis: income differentials in sources of household drinking water, type of toilet facilities, and maternal demographic characteristics do not explain the net impact of income on child mortality. The absence of effects on child survival of the size of the place of residence and the relatively weak effects of maternal schooling are also notable.     

Household registration type and compliance with the “one child” policy in China, 1979–1988

This research analyzes how type of household registration, which reflects the degree of government control, affects compliance with China’s “one child” policy for women at risk during the first decade of implementation. Although socioeconomic and cultural factors have significant effects on four fertility events after first live birth, household registration type is the most important. Furthermore, household registration type interacts with urbanization in such a way that the modernization influence associated with urbanization is more evident for women under less government control. The notable success of China’s family planning program is linked to its unique system of government control.     

Growing Up Together: Cohort Composition and Child Investment

In sub-Saharan Africa, 60 % of child deaths are preventable by investments in child health as simple as immunizations, bed nets, or water purification. This article investigates how a household’s decisions regarding such investments are affected by the size and gender composition of a child’s cohort. I focus on a previously overlooked type of investment: nonrival, child-specific goods (club goods). I empirically estimate the response of immunization status to cohort characteristics. I carefully address the problem of endogenous fertility, which is common in cohort studies. Because most rural Senegalese households are composed of multiple nuclear families, a child’s cohort is composed of both siblings and nonsibling children. Estimating within households, I instrument cohort characteristics with those of the nonsibling (exogenous) portion. I find that children with larger (or more predominantly male) cohorts of vaccine-eligible age are significantly more likely to receive immunization. These findings suggest that children with larger cohorts may be better off in terms of club investments; this is a significant finding for child health given that many illness prevention methods are of a club good nature.     

Consanguinity and child mortality: The risk faced by families

Previous research reveals that the characteristics and practices of a child's family are important determinants of its chances of surviving beyond childhood. This study investigates the effects of consanguinity on a family's odds of experiencing the death of a child in Pakistan, a society in which marriage among close relatives is common. Analysis of data from the 1991 Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey reveals that first cousin marriages increase a couple's risk of enduring the death of one or more of their children. These couples are 1.18 times as likely to have a child die by its fifth birthday than couples not related by blood net of other factors associated with child mortality. Elimination of first cousin marriages would contribute to a modest decrease in the proportion of Pakistani families suffering the death of a child.     

The empowerment of women,fertility, and child mortality: Towards a theoretical analysis

This paper examines one avenue through which female autonomy impinges on fertility and child mortality in developing countries. A simple model is set out in which couples are motivated to have children for old age security purposes. The decisions of a couple regarding fertility and allocation of resources for the healthcare of their children are made within a bargaining framework. An increase in female autonomy translating into an increase in the relative bargaining power or the threat point utility of mothers is shown to reduce fertility and also to reduce child mortality rates. Paradoxically, the increase in female autonomy within a household may increase the disadvantage suffered by female children in that household with respect to survival. Received: 4 August 1999/Accepted: 7 September 2000     

Consumer boycott, household heterogeneity, and child labor

Consumer boycott campaigns against goods that are produced using child labor are becoming increasingly popular. Yet there is still no consensus on which are the effects of such type of activism on child labor in developing countries. In fact, if some agreement is to be found in the recent economic literature, it is that the boycott does not reduce child labor. We contribute to this discussion presenting a simple model which shows that there are conditions under which a consumer boycott reduces child labor. We consider a small country two-factor economy populated by heterogeneous households. The boycott affects both the adult and the child labor markets. We show that the effects are heterogeneous and depend on household characteristics and on the income distribution. We derive the conditions under which the consumer boycott reduces child labor not only for nonpoor households but also for some of the households whose’ income is—before the boycott—under the subsistence level.     

The effects of siblings on the migration of women in two rural areas of Belgium and the Netherlands, 1829-1940

This study explores the extent to which the presence and activities of siblings shaped the chances of women migrating to rural and urban areas in two rural areas of Belgium and the Netherlands during the second half of the nineteenth and first decades of the twentieth century. Shared-frailty Cox proportional hazard analyses of longitudinal data from historical population registers show that siblings exerted an additive impact on women's migration, independently of temporal and household characteristics. Just how siblings influenced women's migration depended on regional modes of production and on employment opportunities. In the Zeeland region, sisters channelled each other into service positions. In the Pays de Herve, where men and women found industrial work in the Walloon cities, women were as much influenced by their brothers' activities. Evidence is found for two mechanisms explaining the effects of siblings: micro-economic notions of joint-household decision-making and social capital theory.     

Aids mortality and the mobility of children in Kwazulu Natal,South Africa

This paper examines the effect of parental death on the mobility of 39,163 children aged 0-17 in rural KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, in 2000 and 2001. Parental mortality from all causes prior to and during follow-up increased the risk of a child moving by nearly two times after we controlled for the age and gender of the child and household characteristics. However, in the follow-up period, child mobility following maternal deaths from AIDS was lower than child mobility following maternal deaths from other causes. Younger children, boys, and children whose mothers or fathers were resident members of the children's households were also less likely to move.     

Fertility Decline and Increased Manifestation of Sex Bias in India

This paper argues that expectations - the process of evaluating the chances for future attainment of valued goals in the home community (stay decision) vs. alternative locations (move decision) - along with family norms about migration are major predictors of intention to move, which in turn is a proximate determinant of migration behaviour. Utilizing longitudinal data from the 1992 and 1994 waves of the Thailand National Migration Survey, logistic regression models show that a strikingly different set of expectations, household demographic indicators, and migrant capital factors were significant determinants of migration intentions for men and women; reflecting Thai gender roles. Migration intentions, in turn, predicted more permanent, but not temporary, survival strategy migration behaviour, while low household income predicted temporary but not more permanent migration behaviour. The measure of perceived family migration norms was a powerful determinant of migration behaviour, but the size of migrant networks was not a statistically significant determinant of either migration intentions or behaviour.     

A joint model of marital childbearing and marital disruption

Married couples with children appear to be less likely to end their marriages than childless couples, especially when the children are young. Although this suggests that children affect the chances that their parents will divorce, the process may not be so simple: the chances that the marriage will last also may affect couples’ willingness to make the commitment to the marriage implied by having children. This paper uses data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to test the hypothesis that the risk of disruption faced by a married woman affects the chances that she will conceive and bear a child. The model used takes into account the simultaneous relationships between marital dissolution and marital fertility by including the hazard of disruption as a predictor of timing and likelihood of marital conception, and by including the results of previous fertility decisions as predictors of disruption of the marriage. We find that the hazard of disruption has strong negative effects on the hazard of marital childbearing, lengthening the intervals between births and decreasing the chances that a child will be born. This effect appears to be strongest for women who have had at least one child, either before or during the current marriage, although it is also large for childless women. Explicitly including the hazard of disruption in models of marital childbearing has sizable and important effects on many predictors of fertility.     

Infant death clustering in families: magnitude, causes, and the influence of better health services, Bangladesh 1982-2005

This analysis of infant mortality in Bangladesh focuses on explaining death clustering within families, using prospective data from a rural region in Bangladesh, split into areas with and without extensive health services (the area covered by the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research and the comparison area, respectively). The modelling framework distinguishes between two explanations of death clustering: (observed and unobserved) heterogeneity across families and a causal 'scarring' effect of the death of one infant on the survival chances of the next to be born. Keeping observed and unobserved characteristics constant, we find scarring in the comparison area only. There the likelihood of infant death is about 29 per cent greater if the previous sibling died in infancy than otherwise. This effect mainly works through birth intervals: infant deaths are followed by shorter birth intervals, which increases the risk of infant death for the next child.     

Death and schooling decisions over the short and long run in rural Madagascar

This paper provides strong evidence that adult mortality has a negative impact on children educational outcomes, both over the short and the long run, in rural Madagascar. The underlying longitudinal data and the difference-in-differences strategy used overcome most of the previous cross-sectional study limitations, such as failure to control for child and household pre-death characteristics and unobserved heterogeneity. This paper also pays special attention to the heterogeneity, robustness, and long-run persistence of effects. Results show that orphans are on average 10 pp less likely to attend school than their nonorphaned counterparts, this effect being even more pronounced for girls and young children from poorer households. Results on adults further show that those orphaned during childhood eventually completed less education. These findings suggest that not only do households suffering unexpected shocks resort to schooling adjustments as an immediate risk-coping strategy, but also that adversity has long-lasting effects on human capital accumulation.     

Toward a Fuller Understanding of Nonresident Father Involvement: An Examination of Child Support,In-Kind Support,and Visitation

The majority of studies of nonresident father involvement focus on either child support payments or visitation. However, nearly 60% of custodial parents receive in-kind (i.e., noncash) support of some form. Using data from a nationally representative sample of children with nonresident fathers (the Child Development Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics), we simultaneously investigate via a trivariate probit model the relationships among three aspects of father involvement: child support, in-kind support, and visitation. We find that these dimensions of involvement are positively related and highly intertwined with the strongest positive relationship being between in-kind support and visitation. Additionally, these aspects of involvement have different sets of determinants. Economic characteristics of the resident household are more frequently associated with the receipt of child support, while demographic characteristics of the child, mother, father and resident household are related to all three aspects of nonresident father involvement. Generally speaking, when differences in impacts of determinants vary for lower and higher income resident families, the differences are related to the receipt of child support. Fewer differences are observed with regard to in-kind support receipt or with visitation. Our model also measures how unobserved factors are related to these facets of involvement. Most notable across income groups is that unobserved factors are positively related for child support and in-kind support receipt for higher income resident households. This relationship is insignificant for lower income resident households.     

Residential Segregation, Nativity Status, and Hispanic Living Arrangements in Later Life

This study examined the relationship between residential segregation in metropolitan areas and the living arrangements of middle-aged and older Hispanics. We specifically considered whether the relationship between residential segregation and living arrangements was different depending on nativity status. This study also explored whether measures of assimilation were related to living arrangements. Using data from the 2000 Census Public-Use Microdata Sample (5 %), our multilevel logistic regression models showed that residing in metropolitan areas with higher residential segregation indexes of evenness, isolation, and clustering was related to an increased likelihood of living in a co-resident household versus an independent household. We discovered that the relationship was in the same direction for US-born and foreign-born Hispanics but the relationship was stronger for US-born Hispanics. Finally, we found that as assimilation increased, so did the likelihood of living independently and that persons living in the ten largest immigrant gateway cities were most likely to co-reside as compared to live independently. These results underscored the importance of developing theoretic models of ethnic group living arrangements that include characteristics of both individuals and the community.     

The uncertain lifetime and the timing of human capital investment

I examine the effects of mortality decline on fertility and human capital investment decision of parents taking into account the uncertainty about child survival. I propose a model, where parents decide on their fertility before the uncertainty is realized, but they choose to invest only in human capital of their surviving children. The model implies a positive relationship between mortality and fertility and a negative one between mortality and educational investment. It has been argued elsewhere that as, in reality, most of the mortality decline occurred in infancy, it should not affect the human capital investment decision, which comes later in life. Thus, increased survival chances should not promote growth by raising the human capital investment. This paper argues the contrary and proposes a mechanism where mortality decline at any age before the teen years can promote growth by raising human capital investment regardless of the timing of the educational investment.      

Divorce,living arrangements,and material well-being during the transition to adulthood in rural Malawi

In this paper, we use longitudinal data to investigate how parental death and divorce influence young women’s own experience of divorce in Malawi, a setting where women marry relatively early and unions are fragile. We find that maternal death and parental divorce are positively associated with divorce for young women but, after controlling for socio-demographic and marital characteristics, only the association with maternal death remains statistically significant. Maternal and paternal death are both strongly associated with women’s post-divorce living arrangements, which in turn affects their material well-being. This finding suggests that divorcing at a young age shapes the subsequent life chances of women; although some women return to their parental home and may have the opportunity to reset the transition to adulthood, other women begin their 20s as head of their own household and with considerable material disadvantage.     

Household and Context Determinants of Child Labor in 221 Districts of 18 Developing Countries

We develop a new theoretical framework that explains the engagement in child labor of children in developing countries. This framework distinguishes three levels (household, district and nation) and three groups of explanatory variables: Resources, Structure and Culture. Each of the three groups refers to another strand of the literature; economics, sociology and anthropology. The framework is tested by applying multilevel analysis on data for 239,120 children living in 221 districts of 18 developing countries. This approach allows us to simultaneously investigate effects of household and context factors. At the household level, we find that resources and structural characteristics influence child labor, whereas cultural characteristics have no effect. With regard to context factors, we find that children work more in rural areas, especially if there are more unskilled manual jobs, and in more traditional urban areas. In more developed regions, girls tend to work significantly less.     

The problems of eligibility and endogenous confounders when assessing the mortality impact of a nationwide disease-prevention programme: the case of insecticide-treated nets in Togo

Evaluation of the mortality impact of nationwide disease-prevention efforts is complicated by potential endogeneity: programme recipients may have unobserved characteristics that simultaneously make them both more likely to become recipients and more likely to survive as a result of other health practices. This population-based study assesses the mortality impact of a nationwide programme that distributed insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) to mothers of children aged 9-59 months in Togo. By comparing mortality rates before and after the programme according to households' eligibility status, we demonstrate that a one-time programme that restricts eligibility to households with a surviving child excludes some households with a high risk of child mortality. We then apply simultaneous estimation models to untangle the mortality impact of ITNs from the effects of unobserved confounders and show that among eligible households, living in a household with ITNs significantly reduces mortality for children aged 20-59 months, even after controlling for endogeneity.