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Jayachandran, Seema

Article Economic development and gender equality: Exceptions to the rule

NBER Reporter

Provided in Cooperation with: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Cambridge, Mass.

Suggested Citation: Jayachandran, Seema (2017) : Economic development and gender equality: Exceptions to the rule, NBER Reporter, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Cambridge, MA, Iss. 3, pp. 26-28

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Seema Jayachandran

Women lag further behind men in couples’ fertility decisions and their invest- poor countries than in rich countries in ments in their children, with important terms of educational outcomes, health sta- implications for child health. It creates not tus, decision-making power in the family, only inequality between boys and girls, but and other aspects of well-being. As a rule, also among boys and among girls, and it the process of economic development lev- can reduce average child health outcomes. els the playing field for women in the labor Rohini Pande and I found that eldest Seema Jayachandran is an market. As an economy grows, its service son preference helps explain ’s unex- associate professor of economics sector expands, while agriculture and other pectedly high rate of stunting among chil- at and primary industries shrink in importance; dren under age five.3 Height is a com- a research associate in the NBER women have a comparative advantage in monly used measure of child well-being, and jobs that require brains rather than brawn. not because we care about height per se, Health Care Programs. Similarly, economic development brings but because height reflects the nutrition Jayachandran’s recent work about — and is often enabled by — lower and illness a child has experienced during focuses on gender equality in devel- lifetime fertility for women, which frees up the critical early years of life. Childhood oping countries. She also is currently their time to invest in their careers. Better stunting has been linked to low cognitive working on projects related to envi- career prospects for women, in turn, lead ability, poor health, and low earnings later ronmental conservation, health, parents to invest more in their daughters’ in life. India is a poor country, so it is unsur- labor markets, and education. educations, and economically empowered prising that stunting is more prevalent than Jayachandran co-chairs the women have more say in their households. in a rich country such as the United States, health sector of the Abdul Latif I have recently reviewed the large literature but researchers have been puzzled by the Jameel Poverty Action Lab and on how economic progress brings about high level of stunting in India compared serves on the board of the Bureau for progress for women.1 to other countries at a similar level of eco- Research and Analysis of Economic However, there are also exceptions to nomic development. Pande and I compare Development. She is a reviewing the rule — ways in which cultural norms India to a set of sub-Saharan African coun- editor at Science and an associate about gender stubbornly persist in the face tries which, though they are poorer than editor for the American Economic of economic progress.2 My recent research, India, have lower levels of stunting. Review, the Q uarterly Journal focusing on India, has examined situations We find that child height varies con- of Economics, and the Journal of in which movement toward gender equity siderably among siblings, and specifically Economic Perspectives. has leveled off or regressed. Specifically, my that there is a strong drop-off with birth Jayachandran received her colleagues and I have examined negative order. This birth order gradient is observed Ph.D. in economics from Harvard ramifications of parents’ favoritism toward in almost all societies, but it is especially University in 2004. She also holds their eldest son and obstacles to women’s strong in India. Firstborn Indian chil- an M.A. in physics from Harvard, success in the labor market. This summary dren are no shorter than their sub-Saha- an M.A. in physics and philoso- describes some of our findings. ran African counterparts. The India height phy from the , puzzle is mostly concentrated among later- and an S.B. in electrical engineer- Implications of Parents’ born children, as shown in Figure 1, on the ing from MIT. Prior to joining Strong Desire to Have a Son following page. Northwestern, she was on the fac- Firstborn children’s genes do not differ ulty at from In India, older couples live with their systematically from the genes of younger 2006–11 and a Robert Wood eldest son, and the eldest son gets priority siblings. Infrastructure for clean water and Johnson Scholar in Health Policy for inheritance. He also plays important sanitation also do not vary much among Research at the University of roles in Hindu funeral rites. Having a son siblings; if anything, they improve over California, Berkeley from 2004– to fulfill these roles is therefore very impor- time, which would help later-born chil- 06. She is a recipient of an NSF tant to couples, and they tend to favor dren. Disparities within families suggest CAREER Award and a Sloan their eldest son over their other children. that parents’ choosing to provide more Research Fellowship. This eldest son preference strongly shapes inputs for some children than for others

26 NBER Reporter • No. 3, September 2017 explains a lot of the height puzzle. We and I studied another way that Indian increased access to ultrasound tests and find that health inputs such as vaccina- parents’ desire to have a son as quickly other technology that can determine fetal tions and prenatal visits also exhibit an as possible has negative spillovers, spe- sex. My research has highlighted another unusually steep drop-off with contributing factor: the move birth order in India. toward smaller families. Rapidly Height for Age and Birth Order, Ages 0–5 We also investigate the role changing norms about family of eldest son preference, and Normalized di­erence between mean child height and WHO growth standard size in India have collided with find that it is at the root of -1 the persistent cultural impor- India’s steep birth order gradi- tance of eldest sons.6 It is not ent. If parents dote on the first- -1.2 the case that parents in India born son, there will be a steep want all their children to be -1.4 birth-order gradient among Africa India boys; if they were to have two boys. How favoritism for eldest -1.6 children, most would ideally sons hurts later-born girls rela- want one son and one daugh- tive to their older sisters is more -1.8 ter. But the exalted role of the subtle. First, an earlier-born girl eldest son means that having at is less likely to have a brother yet, -2 least one son is very important. and so is less likely to be com- First born Second born Third born Couples who want four or five peting with a boy for resources children are very likely to end Source: Researcher’s calculations using data from the Demographic and when she is young. We find Health Surveys Program and the World Health Organization up with a son naturally (94 and much less inequality among sib- 97 percent, respectively), but at lings in regions of India where Figure 1 a family size of two — which son preference is weaker, such is increasingly the desired fam- as the matrilineal state of Kerala, and for cifically for girls.4 When parents with- ily size in India — a quarter of couples Muslims, who do not have strong eldest out a son give birth to a girl, their eager- would end up with two daughters if they son preferences, compared to Hindus. ness to “try again” for a son reduces the did not intervene, and thus many opt for A second key channel is parents decid- duration that their daughter is breastfed. sex-selective abortions. Using a novel way ing to have more children than originally Some mothers know that breastfeeding of eliciting fertility preferences, I show planned in order to have a son. Consider a suppresses fecundity and therefore wean that the growing desire for small families couple who desire two children; they will their newborn girl quickly. Others might explains a third to a half of India’s worsen- likely view the birth of a second daugh- simply become pregnant again — nurs- ing sex imbalance in recent decades. ter as an unpleasant surprise and decide ing does not make a woman completely These findings also highlight a para- to keep trying for a son. They will need to infecund — which triggers them to stop dox. Because women might value daugh- start economizing because now they will breastfeeding. In contexts where water ters more than men do, and because have more children to support than they and food are unsanitary, a shortened dura- female education strengthens women’s had planned, and those spending cutbacks tion of breastfeeding can be harmful to say in household decisions, we might hit the second-born daughter in her criti- child health. We find that this behavior is expect that educating women would cal early years. This behavior generates an important contributor to girls’ mortal- reduce the prevalence of gender selec- some quite specific predictions, which are ity in India. This harm to girls is an unin- tion. However, there is also another borne out in the data, about how parents’ tended consequence rather than a con- important force: Educated women investments depend on the composition scious choice resulting from a decision to typically want fewer children, which of the sibling group. invest more in sons than daughters. It nev- increases their “need” to resort to gen- Finally, we show that within-family ertheless disadvantages girls. der selection. Empowering women will inequality lowers average child health out- not necessarily eliminate the problem comes in India. With diminishing returns The Worsening Problem of “missing women.” This conclusion to investment, concentrating investments of ‘Missing Women’ raises the question of how, if at all, pol- on a favored child hurts aggregate out- icy might address the challenge of “miss- comes. Parents might be maximizing their Perhaps the most extreme conse- ing women.” In current work, Diva Dhar, own well-being by favoring one child, but quence of the desire for sons is selective Tarun Jain, and I are evaluating whether given potential positive externalities of abortion of female fetuses. Amartya Sen incorporating classroom discussions of a healthier and more skilled workforce, called attention to this problem of “miss- gender norms into the government sec- their favoritism could be inefficient, and a ing women” in 1990, and it has worsened ondary school curriculum makes adoles- drag on India’s economic progress. in India, as well as in China and elsewhere, cents less tolerant of gender discrimina- In an earlier paper, Ilyana Kuziemko in the three decades since.5 One reason is tion and begins to reshape those norms.7

NBER Reporter • No. 3, September 2017 27 Female Employment norm promoted entrepreneurship among 5 A. Sen, “More Than 100 Million and Friends’ Support women. Women Are Missing,” The New York Review of Books, 37(20), 1990, pp. Another way in which India’s cultural 61–6. norms might be constraining its growth 1 S. Jayachandran, “The Roots of Return to text relates to female employment. The female Gender Inequality in Developing 6 S. Jayachandran, “Fertility Decline labor force participation rate has been ris- Countries,” NBER Working Paper and Missing Women,” NBER Working ing in most developing countries recently, No. 20380, August 2014, and Annual Paper No. 20272, July 2014, and but in India it has fallen over the past Review of Economics, 7, 2015, pp. American Economic Journal: Applied decade.8 Social restrictions on women’s 63–88. Economics, 9(1), 2017, pp. 118–39. ability to interact with men outside their Return to text Return to text family or to travel unaccompanied within 2 There is a growing literature that dis- 7 D. Dhar, T. Jain, and S. their village or city are barriers to women’s cusses how cultural norms are shaped by Jayachandran, “Intergenerational employment. Many women turn to home- economic forces, then linger even after the Transmission of Gender Attitudes: based self-employment, such as tailor- economic environment has transformed. Evidence from India,” NBER Working ing clothes or making incense sticks, but See, for example, A. F. Alesina, P. Paper No. 21429, July 2015. the same social restrictions can hurt the Giuliano, N. Nunn, “On the Origins of Return to text success of these small businesses, in part Gender Roles: Women and the Plough,” 8 R. Heath and S. Jayachandran, “The because the women have limited oppor- NBER Working Paper No. 17098, Causes and Consequences of Increased tunity to network with and learn from May 2011, and Quarterly Journal of Female Education and Labor Force peers. , Pande, Natalia Rigol, Economics, 128(2), 2013, pp. 469–530. Participation in Developing Countries,” and I evaluated a popular type of program Return to text NBER Working Paper No. 22766, to help small-scale entrepreneurs, namely 3 S. Jayachandran and R. Pande, “Why October 2016, and forthcoming in S. business skills training.9 In one variant of Are Indian Children So Short?,” NBER Averett, L. Argys, and S. Hoffman, eds., the program, we added the feature that Working Paper No. 21036, March Oxford Handbook on the Economics women could bring a friend with them to 2015, and American Economic Review, of Women, New York, NY: Oxford the classes. Program participants took out 107(9), 2017, pp. 2600–29. University Press, 2018. more business loans and earned higher Return to text Return to text incomes, but only in the variant where 4 S. Jayachandran and I. Kuziemko, 9 E. Field, S. Jayachandran, R. Pande, they could bring a friend. We cannot say “Why Do Mothers Breastfeed Girls Less and N. Rigol, “Friendship at Work: for sure what led to this result, but having Than Boys? Evidence and Implications Can Peer Effects Catalyze Female a friend’s support seemed to give women for Child Health in India,” NBER Entrepreneurship?,” NBER Working the wherewithal to set more ambitious Working Paper No. 15041, June 2009, Paper No. 21093, April 2015, and business goals and achieve them. In this and Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Economic Journal: Economic case, without reshaping the cultural norm, 126(3), 2011, pp. 1485–538. Policy, 8(2), 2016, pp. 125–53. redesigning a program in light of the Return to text Return to text

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