Family size,schooling and child labor in Peru -- an empirical analysis

This paper analyzes the effects of being indigenous, number of siblings, sibling activities and sibling age structure on child schooling progress and child non-school activity. The analysis is based on the Peru 1991 Living Standards Survey. The analysis shows that family size is important. However, the analysis also demonstrates the importance of taking into consideration the activities of siblings. The number of siblings not entrolled in school proves to be an important control variable in at least one specification of the empirical model. However, more research is needed on the interactions between siblings, their activities and their age structure. In other words, an attempt must be made to find ways of taking into account the “life cycle effects” of one‘s siblings on their schooling performance and labor force activity. The analysis also shows that the age structure of siblings is important, but in conjunction with their activities. That is, having a greater number of younger siblings implies less schooling, more age-grade distortion in the classroom and more child labor. JEL classification: J22, J23, I21 Received August 1, 1996 / Accepted February 21, 1997     

Family size and optimal income taxation

This paper studies the role of family size in the design of optimal income taxation. We consider a second best setting where the government observes the number of children and the income of the parents but not their productivity. With a linear tax schedule the marginal tax rate is shown to decrease with the number of children, while the relationship between the demogrant and family size appears to be ambiguous. With two ability levels, optimal non-linear income tax implies zero marginal tax rates for the higher ability parents; low ability parents have positive marginal tax rates that decrease with family size. Received: 4 September 2000/Accepted: 17 May 2001     

Indirect measures of child mortality: Overview and application to Brazil, 1980

Mortality rates in the early childhood years are valuable indicators of a population's standard of living, especially in high mortality countries in the developing world. This study summarizes the logic of indirect techniques of mortality estimation, and applies the methods to sample data from the 1980 census of Brazil. The results for metropolitan areas show that children in affluent households have an average expectation of life that is around ten years higher compared to the children of the poor. Multivariate analysis using the mortality ratio proposed by Trussell and Preston found that mother's education was the most important determinant of child mortality, followed by the effects of running water in the house, father's schooling, membership in the social security system and region of the country. Given the potential usefulness of the indirect methods to a wide range of researchers outside of the field of demography, the study presents detailed examples of the computational steps required of the various techniques.     

Family size and educational attainment in England and Wales

In this paper, we use linked census data from England and Wales to investigate whether having a large number of siblings leads to lower educational attainment. There is a large literature suggesting that with large sibship size, parental resources will be diluted and this, in turn, will lead to lower educational attainment. Using twin births and the sex composition of the sibling group as instrumental variables, we find that the evidence of a family size effect on educational attainment is rather uncertain. Similar results are obtained when we use occupational attainment as the dependent variable. We also demonstrate the confounding of birth order and family size effects, and show that an adjusted birth order index proposed by Booth and Kee provides an effective solution to this estimation problem.     

Family structure and child outcomes in the USA and Sweden

Previous research shows that living in a non-intact family is associated with educational disadvantages. This paper compares the relationships between childhood family structure, schooling, and earnings in Sweden and the USA. This comparison is interesting because both family structure and public policies differ significantly. We find a negative relationship between living in a non-intact family and child outcomes, and the estimates are remarkably similar in both countries. After using sibling-difference models, the correlation with family structure is no longer significant. These results cast doubt on the causal interpretation of the negative relationship between non-intact family structures and child outcomes.     

Family size and the quality of children

If couples decide to have fewer children in order to achieve higher “quality” offspring, are they correct in assuming that the quality of children bears an important and inverse relation to family size? If they are correct, how does number of children operate to affect individual quality? This research (using U.S. whites primarily) takes educational attainment (among adults) and college plans (among youngsters) as the principal indicators of quality, but also directs some attention to measures of intelligence. The analysis supports the “dilution model” (on average, the more children the lower the quality of each child) and indicates that only children do not suffer from lack of siblings, and that other last-borns are not handicapped by a “teaching deficit.” Number of siblings (relative to other background variables) is found to have an important detrimental impact on child quality—an impact compounded by the fact that, when couples are at a stage in life to make family-size decisions, most background factors (however important to the quality of their children) are no longer readily manipulable. A special path analysis of college plans among boys uses a modification of Sewell’s Wisconsin Model as its base. The results show that number of siblings is a negative influence on intervening variables affecting college plans. In general, the research documents the unfavorable consequences for individual siblings of high fertility, even in a country that is (at least for whites) as socially, economically, and politically advantaged as the United States.     

Purchased child care,optimal family size and mother's employment Theory and econometric analysis

The paper develops a model of family size decisions in which couples choose explicitly a combination of mother's time and purchased childcare (e.g. childminders, nannies) for the care and rearing of children. The theoretical model implies that the impact of the mother's wage on her completed fertility varies with the market price of childcare, and that this effect increases (becoming less negative or more positive) with the level of her wage. Econometric analysis of British micro-data confirms the main predictions of the model.I am grateful to Robert E. Wright for research assistance, and to the Economic and Social Research Council for supporting this research as part of the research programme Income Inequality, Gender and Demographic Differentials. Financial support from the Nuffield Foundation grant no. PT/9, Family Formation and Employment Activity is also gratefully acknowledged.     

Family size and schooling in sub-Saharan African settings: A reexamination

Contrary to theory and evidence from many other regions, previous studies in sub-Saharan Africa have found surprisingly weak associations between family size and schooling. It is unclear; however, whether these weak results reflect (spurious) limitations in methodology or (real) differences in context. This study uses schooling histories from Cameroon to test four contending methodological and contextual explanations for these weak results: measurement bias, statistical estimation bias, family buffering, and socioeconomic context. We find the strongest support for the last explanation: the relationship between family size and schooling varies with spatial and historical context. This relationship has strengthened within the country over time, and this raises concern about the implications of current demographic transitions on inequality among children.     

Bargaining over family size: The determinants of fertility in Brazil

Understanding how households make fertility decisions is important to implementing effective policy to slow population growth. Most empirical studies of this decision are based on household models in which men and women are assumed to act as if they have the same preferences for the number of children. However, if men and women have different preferences regarding fertility and are more likely to assert their own preferences as their bargaining power in the household increases, policies to lower fertility rates may be more effectively targeted toward one spouse or the other. In this paper, we test the relevance of the single preferences model by investigating whether men and women's nonwage incomes have the same effects on the number of children in the household. We find that while increases in both the man and woman's nonwage income lower the number of children in the household, an equivalent increase in the woman's income has a significantly stronger effect than the man's. In addition, we find that increases in women's nonwage transfer income have the strongest effects on the fertility decisions of women with low levels of education. The most important policy implication of our results is that policies aimed at increasing the incomes of the least-educated women will be the most effective in lowering fertility rates.     

Family size in successive generations: The effects of birth order,intergenerational change in lifestyle,and familial satisfaction

Studies of family size in successive generations have found a small but persistently positive effect of size of family of orientation. Recent work has suggested that this relationship may be influenced by birth order, intergenerational change in lifestyle, and familial satisfaction. Data from a 24-year longitudinal study of women in Pennsylvania indicate that number of siblings does influence size of family of procreation. More important, this relationship is stronger among women who were first-born that later-born, stronger for those not experiencing intergenerational change than for those who changed, and stronger among those who at age 16 were satisfied with their parental family than for those who were dissatisfied.     

Family size and maternal health: evidence from the One-Child policy in China

In this paper, we examine the impact of family size on maternal health outcomes by exploiting the tremendous change in family size under the One-Child policy in China. Using data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey 1993–2006, we find that mothers with fewer children have a higher calorie intake and a lower probability of being underweight and having low blood pressure; meanwhile, they have a higher probability of being overweight. This would occur if a smaller family size increases the food consumption of mothers, leading underweight women to attain a normal weight and normal weight women becoming overweight. Robust tests are performed to provide evidence on the hypothesis that the tradeoff between children’s quantity and mother’s “quality” is through a budget constraint mechanism, that is, having more children decreases the resource allocated to mothers and affects their health outcomes.     

Family size composition differentials between central city-suburb and metropolitan-nonmetropolltan migration streams

During the migration intervals 1965–1970, 1970–1975, and 1975–1979, families that migrated from Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSAs) to nonmetropolitan areas and from central cities to suburban rings were larger in mean size than families that composed the respective counterstreams. Mean family sizes declined sharply for all groups throughout the period, but absolute differentials between opposing streams increased slightly. In terms of the selective attraction of families by size, nonmetropolitan net in-migration was very similar to suburbanization within SMSAs. A considerable portion of recent nonmetropolitan net gains resulted from the exchange of larger in-migrant families for smaller outmigrant families.     

The environment as a determinant of child mortality among migrants in frontier areas of Pará and RondÔnia, Brazil, 1980

This article examines child mortality as an indicator of the quality of life among migrants living in Brazilian Amazonia in 1980. I focus on migrants in the frontier states of Pará and RondÔnia, which experienced rapid settlement during the 1970s. The key question here is the effect of settlement location on child mortality rates. While RondÔnia had lower ratios of population per public health establishments and personnel than Pará, RondÔnia nonetheless exhibited a higher malaria prevalence in 1980. I therefore attribute locational differences in child mortality to environmental factors important to malaria transmission rather than to health care infrastructure. The findings from multivariate regression analysis show that net of the effects of human capital, migration history and migrant living standards, settling in Pará rather than RondÔnia resulted in significantly lower rates of child mortality. These findings suggest that environmental factors coinciding with location of frontier settlement had important consequences for the living standards of migrants in the Brazilian Amazon.     

家庭变迁、家庭政策演进与中国家庭政策构建

从中国家庭变迁和中国家庭政策演进两个方面,以西方发达国家和中国为视角,对中国自20世纪80年代起至今30多年来家庭政策研究进行梳理、总结和分析,提出构建中国家庭政策的建议。中国家庭呈现出核心、主干、联合家庭此消彼长、波动往复的变迁特点,“家本位”价值观占主导地位;同时中国现有家庭政策体现出概念范围宽泛、目标指向含蓄、补救型模式的三大主要特征,也表现出“家庭主义”、“去家庭化”和两者平衡的三阶段演进历程。未来中国家庭政策的构建要围绕中国家庭的两大特点———稳健的“主干家庭”和绵延的“家本位”价值观念,以平衡的发展型家庭政策为取向,向政策概念范围精准、目标指向明确、系统普惠型模式的方向发展。     

Family size and children’s education in Thailand: Evidence from a national sample

Analysis of a large, nationally representative survey shows that family size exerts a substantial negative influence on the probability that a child will attend secondary school in Thailand. The primary mechanism underlying this effect is most likely the dilution of familial resources available per child associated with larger numbers of children. The extent and the level of schooling at which this effect operates vary with the household level of wealth and with rural or urban residence. Because fertility decline is leading to a major increase in the proportion of children who come from small families, falling birth rates contribute to increasing educational attainment in Thailand.     

Family size and expectations about housing in the later nineteenth century: three Yorkshire towns

This article illustrates how cultural history can deepen the understanding of demographic change, presenting evidence about ways in which rising working-class expectations about appropriate living standards may have created additional pressures on the perceived costs of child-rearing. Among the key areas of family consumption, housing costs are selected for examination. It is shown that higher expectations about appropriate housing quality put pressure on family budgets, augmented by the rising cost of like-for-like housing. The discussion considers expectations about the size of the dwelling and attitudes to furnishing the home, and suggests that these rising expectations helped encourage family limitation. Existing accounts of the fertility decline which stress the role of rising expectations are often too generalised: this article illustrates what can be gained by adding detail and geographical variation.     

Family planning's benefits include improved child health and nutrition: new data from Bangladesh

2 recent studies from the Matlab in Bangladesh confirm that family planning promotes child survival. The 1st study is a longitudinal analysis of 3370 births in 1985 to women living in 70 villages who were served by the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh's Matlab Family Planning and Health Services Project. The 2nd is a study of 12-26 month old children and 24-36 month old children, all of whom were born in the same 70 villages between July 1985 and June 1986. The 1st study demonstrates that family planning improves child survival by lengthening the birth interval. In fact, if women delay a subsequent birth by about 2 years, child survival improves at all ages up to 5 years. Longer birth intervals result in a reduction of very high order births. The same study also reveals that family planning improves child survival indirectly by granting mothers access to integrated maternal and child health services. The 2nd study indicates that a child is 3 times more likely to suffer malnutrition, even at age 3, than a child whose mother gives birth again at an interval greater than 24 months. Specifically, the mother removes the index child from the breast prematurely, thereby adversely affecting the index child's nutrition. The birth interval prior to the index child does not adversely affect the index child's nutritional status, however. The 2nd study's result suggest that birth spacing, as promoted by family planning programs, improves child health and nutrition. The findings from these studies show the importance of continued investments in family planning programs in developing countries.     

Fertility,social mobility and urban migration in Brazil

In the course of a sample survey of the adult population of eight cities in southcentral Brazil conducted in 1959 and early 1960, material was obtained respecting total family size after ten or more years of marriage. This was analysed in order to determine what variations in mean family size could be observed in relation to class status and social mobility. The results generally corroborate those of J. Berent for England and Wales–that is, that fertility is inversely related to class status, and that for a given class, the lower the class of origin, the higher the fertility. There was no confirmation, however, of J. Goldberg's findings in Detroit that the inverse relationship between class and fertility is due to the presence in urban populations of the rural-born, and suggestions are put forward which may explain this result in Brazil. A tentative estimate suggests that the net effect of social mobility had been to reduce the sample's total births by something of the order of 3 per cent.     

Family size and support of older adults in urban and rural China: Current effects and future implications

Change in China's age structure is creating concerns about whether reductions in family size undermine traditional support mechanisms for older adults. Future generations may expect less support as the availability of children declines. In this article, the association between number of children and the receipt of instrumental and financial support is examined for rural and urban populations. Probabilities are modeled as bivariate probits. Coefficients are used to conduct simulations in which support is examined across hypothetical distributions of number of children. The results show that the number of children is an important determinant of support, but future reductions in support may not be as dramatic as anticipated.