This project will analyze household responses to short-run and long-run changes in household economic conditions in Brazil. The project will focus on changes in the labor force participation of women and children and on the schooling attainment of children. The project is motivated by the concern over social effects of macroeconomic fluctuations experienced by many developing countries in recent decades. Brazil experienced volatile economic cycles from 1976 to 1995, a period for which there exist excellent household survey data. These data make it possible to test whether worsening household economic conditions had effects such as decreasing children's school advancement. The project will use two exceptional data sets--the PNAD annual household surveys from 1976 to 1993, and the PME monthly employment survey from 1982 to 1995. These surveys provide data on over 20 million individuals over the tumultuous economic period from 1976 to 1995. The project will use the PME and PNAD to document short-run and long-run trends in wages, employment, and schooling for adults and children. The project will exploit the longitudinal structure of the PME to analyze short-run volatility in wages and decompose wage inequality into persistent and transitory components. The PME data will also be used to analyze labor force transitions for women and children. Regressions with the panel data using entry into the labor force and children's school advancement as dependent variables, with changes in husband's income and employment status as independent variables, will indicate the sensitivity of employment and schooling to short-run economic shocks. Interactions of economic shocks with variables such as husband's eduction will indicate whether responses to economic shocks are more extreme for poor households. The project will also look at the effects of long-run changes, such as improvements in adult schooling, on trends in employment and children's schooling during the 1976-95 period. These predicted effects will be compared with the predicted effects of short-run economic dislocations, providing evidence on the relative importance of short-run and long-run economic change on changes in schooling and employment over this period.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
1R01HD031214-01A2
Application #
2025498
Study Section
Social Sciences and Population Study Section (SSP)
Project Start
1997-06-01
Project End
2000-05-31
Budget Start
1997-06-01
Budget End
1998-05-31
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
1997
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Michigan Ann Arbor
Department
Miscellaneous
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
791277940
City
Ann Arbor
State
MI
Country
United States
Zip Code
48109
Lam, David; Marteleto, Leticia (2008) Stages of the Demographic Transition from a Child's Perspective: Family Size, Cohort Size, and Children's Resources. Popul Dev Rev 34:225-252
Levison, Deborah; Hoek, Jasper; Lam, David et al. (2007) Intermittent child employment and its implications for estimates of child labour. Int Labour Rev 146:217-251
Duryea, Suzanne; Lam, David; Levison, Deborah (2007) Effects of Economic Shocks on Children's Employment and Schooling in Brazil. J Dev Econ 84:188-214