Mothers' Education and Survival of Female Children in a Rural Area of Bangladesh

In this paper it is investigated whether the positive effect of mothers' education on child survival is similar for boys and girls in Matlab, Bangladesh. The study is based on follow-up of 7,913 live births that occurred in the study area during the whole of 1982. The five independent variables included in the analysis are: sex of children, mother's education, mother's age at the time of birth, household economic condition, and health programme block. Hazard analysis shows that the positive effect of mother's education on child survival is different for boys and girls. For boys, a change in mother's education from no schooling to 1–5 years resulted in reducing the predicted risk of death by 45 per cent, while for the girls the reduction came to only seven per cent. Similarly, a change in mother's education from no schooling to six or more years of schooling resulted in a reduction of risk of 70 per cent for boys, while for girls it was only 32 per cent.     

Death Clustering,Mothers' Education and the Determinants of Child Mortality in Rural Punjab,India

In this paper the behavioural factors which make for continuing high levels of child mortality in rural Punjab, despite favourable conditions in terms of nutrition, income, women's literacy and health care facilities are examined. A major factor is that inadequate attention has been paid to improved health care practices within the home. Women's autonomy, social class, and mothers' education significantly influence child survival. One of the pathways by which mothers' education affects child survival is through improved child care. In this society, a woman's autonomy is lowest during that part of her life-cycle which also contains her peak childbearing years: this perverse overlap raises child mortality. The risk of dying is distributed very unevenly amongst children, as the majority of child deaths are clustered amongst a small proportion of the families. The death-clustering variable remained significant even after several possible biological and socio-economic reasons for clustering had been controlled. It is argued that this clustering of deaths is partly due to the poor basic abilities of some mothers and other carers.     

High Fertility and Children's Schooling in Ghana: Sex Differences in Parental Contributions and Educational Outcomes

This paper explores the linkages at the family level between sustained high fertility and children's schooling in Ghana, in the context of a constrained economic environment and rising school fees. The unique feature of the paper is its exploration of the operational significance of alternative definitions of “sib size” – the number of “same-mother” siblings and “same-father” siblings – in relation to enrolment, grade attainment, and school drop-out for boys and girls of primary and secondary school age. The analysis is based on the first wave of the Ghana Living Standards Measurement Survey (GLSS) data, collected in 1987–88. The results of the statistical analysis lead to the conclusion that the co-existence of high fertility, rising school costs, and economic reversals is having a negative impact on the education of girls, in terms of drop-out rates and grade attainment. Some of the costs of high fertility are borne by older siblings (particularly girls) rather than by parents, with the result that children from larger families experience greater inequality between themselves and their siblings by sex and birth order. Because fathers have more children on average than mothers, the inequality between their children appears to be even greater than between mothers' children, particularly given the importance of fathers' role in the payment of school fees. The paper concludes that the greatest cost for children in Ghana of sustained high fertility is likely to be the reinforcement of traditional sex roles, largely a product of high fertility in the past.     

Gender patterns in Vietnam’s child mortality

We analyze child mortality in Vietnam focusing on gender aspects. Contrary to several other countries in the region, mortality rates for boys are substantially larger than for girls. The mortality rate of boys appears to be more sensitive to parents’ education levels than the mortality rate of girls. A high education level of the father is particularly protective for boys. The rural–urban mortality difference in the raw data, which is particularly large for boys, can be fully explained by differences in observable characteristics of urban and rural households.     

Excess mortality of girls in the Middle East in the 1970s and 1980s: Patterns,correlates and gaps in research

Abstract. Comparative research on girls' excess mortality in the Middle East is rare. Estimates from the United Nations suggest that absolute excess mortality of girls was not universal in the 1970s and was uncommon by the 1980s. Compared with historical Northwest Europe at similar levels of boys' under-five mortality, however, girls' under-five mortality was high in both periods. Studies of the allocation of food and health care suggest that parents invested less and provided less curative care to girls than boys where girls' excess mortality was greatest. Urbanization and women's relative economic opportunity account for much of the variation in relative mortality. Unexplained excess mortality of girls in the Middle East compared with historical Northwest Europe may be attributable to differences in socio-cultural, political, and economic systems that influence the forms of discrimination exercised against girls; however, inadequate measurement of these variables limits their consideration in comparative research.     

The First Fifty Years – A Tribute to E. Grebenik

India is a country with a pervasive preference for sons and one of the highest levels of excess child mortality for girls in the world (child mortality for girls exceeds child mortality for boys by 43 per cent). In this article, data from the National Family Health Survey are used to examine the effect of son preference on parity progression and ultimately on child mortality. The demographic effects of family composition are estimated with hazard models. The analysis indicates that son preference fundamentally affects demographic behaviour in India. Family composition affects fertility behaviour in every state examined and son preference is the predominant influence in all but one of these states. The effects of family composition on excess child mortality for girls are more complex, but girls with older sisters are often subject to the highest risk of mortality.     

Differences in Child Health Across Rural,Urban, and Slum Areas: Evidence From India

The developing world is rapidly urbanizing, but an understanding of how child health differs across urban and rural areas is lacking. We examine the association between area of residence and child health in India, focusing on composition and selection effects. Simple height-for-age averages show that rural Indian children have the poorest health and urban children have the best, with slum children in between. With wealth or observed health environment held constant, the urban height-for-age advantage disappears, and slum children fare significantly worse than their rural counterparts. Hence, differences in composition across areas mask a substantial negative association between living in slums and height-for-age. This association is more negative for girls than boys. Furthermore, a large number of girls are “missing” in slums; we argue that this implies that the negative association between living in slums and health is even stronger than our estimate. The missing girls also help explain why slum girls appear to have a substantially lower mortality than rural girls, whereas slum boys have a higher mortality risk than rural boys. We estimate that slum conditions (such as overcrowding and open sewers), which the survey does not adequately capture, are associated with 20 % to 37 % of slum children’s stunting risk.     

Religion and Health in Early Childhood: Evidence from South Asia

This article studies early childhood health in India, Bangladesh, and Nepal, focusing on inequalities in anthropometric outcomes by religious adherence. India and Nepal have Hindu majorities, while Bangladesh is predominantly Muslim. The results suggest that Muslim infants have an advantage over Hindu infants in height‐for‐age in India (for boys and girls) and in Bangladesh (for boys). However, this advantage disappears beyond 12 months of age, at which point Hindu children in all three countries are found to have significantly better anthropometric outcomes than Muslim children. We report tests that rule out mortality selection and undertake falsification and robustness exercises that confirm these findings. Further results suggest that exposure to Ramadan fasting in utero may lead to positive selection of Muslim male infants, partially explaining the Muslim infant health advantage, but this does not fully explain the shift from Muslim advantage in infancy to Hindu advantage in childhood in all three countries.     

Maternal resources, proximity of services, and curative care of boys and girls in Minya, Egypt 1995-97

Despite declines in the risk of dying among children in Egypt, girls' excess mortality in early childhood persists. Using data from a representative sample of children in Minya, Egypt, I assess whether maternal resources, marital household structure, and proximity of services influence disparities by sex in curative care. The results show that boys visit any source of care marginally more often than girls. Among children who receive care, boys more often receive private care. Higher maternal education has no effect on the relative odds of private care, whereas maternal residence with marital relatives reduces the odds that girls receive private care. Having a public clinic in the neighbourhood, at which private services may be offered, increases girls' odds of receiving private care. Higher and more equitable levels of care-seeking at public and private services of higher quality may reduce differences in the survival of boys and girls in a highly sex-stratified setting.     

Men's influence on the onset and progress of fertility decline in Ghana, 1988–98

While lower fertility is commonly associated with women's reproductive autonomy, we demonstrate that the influence of men's education on reproductive decision-making increased during the first decade of rapid fertility decline in Ghana. Husband's education exerts a stronger influence on wife's fertility intentions than does her own education, and the magnitude of the effect of his education increased significantly from 1988 to 1998. Lower fertility in Ghana seems to be associated more with men's declining fertility desires than with women's increasing reproductive autonomy. Nevertheless, there is some indication that women's education may play a relatively greater role in reproductive decision-making as fertility decline progresses still further.     

家庭教育支出决定因素分析--来自中国城镇住户调查数据的经验证据

利用北京、辽宁、浙江、广东、四川与陕西2002年和2009年的城镇住户调查数据对家庭教育支出行为的决定因素和家庭教育支出的影响机制进行了实证检验与扩展分析。结论表明；（1）2002年家庭教育总支出的收入弹性大于2009年的家庭教育总支出收入弹性，且2002年的收入弹性大于1；家庭教育支出行为与户主年龄呈现显著的“U”型关系，且女孩比男孩获得更多的家庭教育资源；（2）各分项教育支出中，培训费支出受家庭可支配收入的影响最大；（3）城市人口规模与家庭教育支出之间呈现正相关关系；（4）总体而言，妻子对家庭教育支出的影响显著大于丈夫的影响，这主要体现在受教育年限方面。     

Widows,Sons, and Old-Age Security in Rural Maharashtra: A Comment on Vlassoff

In the present paper, the author argues that both structures and levels of childhood mortality patterns have important implications for family economies in historical and in developing societies. Where mortality is high or when its neonatal component is low relatively to the probabilities of death at higher ages, economies tend to suffer because parental investments in bearing and rearing the children who die are greater. These investments can best be measured in terms of time, especially mothers' time. In unfavourable mortality regimes, a far greater part of a woman's activity is dedicated to children who eventually die, thus limiting the time and energy available for other productive activities. In this way, adverse infant mortality patterns can be seen as an independent variable, an important contributing factor to the vicious circle of poverty and underdevelopment.     

Sex Differentials in Childhood Feeding,Health Care,and Nutritional Status in India

Strong preference for sons in South Asia is well documented, but evidence on female disadvantage in childhood feeding, health care, and nutritional status is inconclusive. This article examines sex differentials in indicators of childhood feeding, health care, and nutritional status of children under age 3 by birth order and sex composition of older living siblings. Data are from India's 1992–93 and 1998–99 National Family Health Surveys. The analysis finds three reasons for inconclusive evidence on female disadvantage in aggregate analyses. First, discrimination against girls is limited to the relatively small fraction of children of certain birth orders and sex compositions of older siblings. Second, discrimination against girls when boys are in short supply and discrimination against boys when girls are in short supply cancel each other to some extent. Third, some discrimination against girls (e.g., in exclusive breastfeeding at 6–9 months) is nutritionally beneficial to girls. Separate analyses for North and South India find that gender discrimination is as common in the South as in the North, where son preference is generally much stronger.     

The trend of intelligence in certain districts of England

An estimate of the change in intelligence in ten English education authorities during the past 10 years has been made by comparing the scores of complete year groups of 11-year-old children in 1947 with scores made by similar groups in the same test on an earlier occasion. The first test was taken by 31,728 children and the second by 28,505 children, boys and girls in approximately equal numbers.

For boys and girls together there was a fall of 0.0034 point of intelligence quotient per year, which was far from significant. In seven districts where we had separate scores for boys and girls on both occasions there was a significant fall in intelligence quotient of 0.0921 point per year amongst boys and a significant rise of 0.0921 point per year amongst girls.

The adventitious influences which might invalidate a comparison of the two sets of scores have been considered; they probably tend to depress the score at the second test.

A study of sex differences in attainment tests at 11 years and in intelligence tests at 13 years and later suggests that the scores of the boys in 1947 are underestimates of their ability, and that a truer measure of the trend of intelligence amongst the population is represented by the change in the girls' scores.

By assuming a certain parallelism between the present survey and that of the Scottish children, the rise in intelligence quotient of the latter is estimated at 0.0543 point per year.

A significant increase in the dispersion of intelligence test score of both boys and girls during the past 10 years has been recorded.     

Sex Differentials in Undernutrition: A Look at Survey Evidence

This note seeks indirect evidence regarding possible sex biases in food intake for adults and children, through large‐scale survey findings for anthropometric indicators. Among adults, excess female undernutrition is a serious problem in view of the large populations concerned (rural China, India), but data are still needed to assess the situation in many countries. Regarding preschool children, the anti‐female biases once noted for China, India, and other countries seem to have disappeared. Where differences exist, boys fare worse than girls (probably because girls, given a less than adequate food supply, tend to cope with it better than boys). Anti‐female discriminatory practices either are limited in magnitude or apply in groups that are too few or too small to be detectable in large populations.     

Gender, educational attainment, and the impact of parental migration on children left behind

Estimation of the causal effect of parental migration on children’s educational attainment is complicated by the fact that migrants and nonmigrants are likely to differ in unobservable ways that also affect children’s educational outcomes. This paper suggests a novel way of addressing this selection problem by looking within the family to exploit variation in siblings’ ages at the time of parental migration. The basic assumption underlying the analysis is that parental migration will have no effect on the educational outcomes of children who are at least 20?years old because they have already completed their education. Their younger siblings, in contrast, may still be in school, and thus will be affected by the parental migration experience. The results point to a statistically significant positive effect of paternal US migration on education for girls, suggesting that pushing a father’s US migration earlier in his daughter’s life can lead to an increase in her educational attainment of up to 1?year relative to delaying migration until after she has turned 20?years old. In contrast, paternal domestic migration has no statistically significant effect on educational attainment for girls or boys, suggesting that father absence does not play a major role in determining children’s educational outcomes. Instead, these results suggest that the marginal dollars from US migrant remittances appear to enable families to further educate their daughters. Thus, policymakers should view international migration as a potential pathway by which families raise educational attainments of girls in particular.     

Culture influences demographic behavior: evidence from India

Delhi migrants from low socioeconomic classes were compared based on their home origins in north or south India. The two groups differed in cultural beliefs, attitudes, and practices, but they lived in the same resettlement colony and had the same physical access to services and opportunities. Retrospective data was collected from a sample of ever-married women and household heads. Longitudinal data was collected on households with at least two living children younger than 12 in visits once every two weeks over a six-month period. Information was obtained on children's eating patterns, activities, illnesses, and the treatment of their illnesses. Households from Tamil Nadu in the south were more modern, had greater female autonomy, and were open to new ideas. Uttar Pradesh women from the north were more traditional, secluded, and restricted in economic activities. The results showed lower fertility, higher levels of contraceptive use, and earlier ends to childbearing among Tamil Nadu women, who had had more exposure to ideas about smaller family size, healthful childrearing practices, and positive attitudes about contraceptive use. For every 100 Tamil Nadu children who died, 111 Uttar Pradesh children died. Health care practices differed between groups; the urban slum environment was conducive to the spread of gastrointestinal infections among Uttar Pradesh girls discouraged from using the public water taps and toilet facilities. Among the Tamil Nadu migrants, girls actually had lower childhood mortality rates than boys. 115 girls died for every 100 boys among the Uttar Pradesh. The reason may be due to the avoidance or delay of outside medical attention until too late. The conclusion was that the status of women, and their exposure to and interaction with the outside world and control over decision making at home, explained the differences between the two groups. Policy implications are to make programs culturally sensitive for example, providing at-home care for women traditionally sheltered from contact with strangers.     

Center-Based Care in the Context of One-Child Policy in China: Do Child Gender and Siblings Matter?

We examined the effects of child gender and siblings on center-based care enrollment in the context of China’s one-child policy and its tradition of preference to have many children, especially sons. Using data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) 2000 wave and multilevel logistic regression models, we found that children without siblings consistently had higher odds of receiving center-based care than those with siblings, while there was no evidence that child gender mattered. Further analyses did not show evidence that the effects of child gender and siblings were moderated by household and community resources or local one-child policy. However, we did find that the presence of male, older, or school-age siblings (as compared to female, younger, or preschool-age siblings) reduced preschoolers’ odds of receiving center-based care. This was possibly because parents valued formal education much more than preschools and thus focused more on boys when they entered elementary schools than on their sisters or younger brothers. These findings suggest that more attention needs to be given to the equal education opportunities for boys and girls as well as for children with and without siblings.     

The Association Between Adolescent Life Satisfaction, Family Structure, Family Affluence and Gender Differences in Parent–Child Communication

The study sought to examine young people’s life satisfaction in the context of the family environment, using data from the 2006 HBSC: WHO-collaborative Study in Scotland (N = 5,126). Multilevel linear regression analyses were carried out for 11-, 13- and 15-year old boys and girls, with outcome measure ridit-transformed life satisfaction. The study found there to be a relationship between family structure and life satisfaction for boys and girls aged 13 and 15 years. Family affluence mediated this relationship, however the extent of this mediation depended both on age and gender. For both boys and girls at all ages, life satisfaction was more strongly associated with parent–child communication than with family structure or family affluence. After adjustment for risk/health behaviours and attitudes towards peers and school, family structure remained significant for boys aged 13 years only. Whereas difficult parent–child communication acted as a risk factor of low life satisfaction for boys and girls, easy communication acted as protective factor among girls only.     

Gender Bias in the Allocation of Curative Health Care in Minia,Egypt

Research indicates that girls' disadvantage in 1–4 mortality is unusually high inEgypt, yet the relevance of intra-family differences in power for the distributionof health resources is debated. This analysis compares effects of the involvementof various family members on choice of provider, place of care, and total expendituresfor curative care among 129 girls and boys with diarrhea in Minia, Egypt. Girlshave lower odds than boys of visiting doctors versus lay providers and privateversus informal facilities, and the involvement of fathers in prior discussionsabout care may be important to reduce this disparity. Median expenditures forcurative care also are lower for girls than boys, particularly when fathers arenever involved in choice of care. Future research should examine the extent towhich these disparities in care reflect differences in the quality of care received.