Throughout the Western world, boys have higher mortality rates than girls. This pattern is, however, reversed in a number of South and East Asian countries, in which mortality rates are higher for girls than for boys. But why are girls dying more than boys in places like India? There is a belief that parents may favor boys, investing more on them than on girls: Boys may be fed a more nutritious diet and receive better health care than girls. The existing evidence on whether boys and girls are treated differently is however inconclusive. Some studies find evidence that boys are better treated than girls. Other studies however find no evidence of differential treatment. One issue with previous studies is that they assume that boys and girls live in families with similar characteristics. But this assumption is incorrect if families want to have a certain number of sons and as a result follow fertility stopping rules. As a consequence, estimates of differences in investments that assume that boys and girls live in similar families will be biased. We develop a novel methodology that addresses this econometric issue to answer the question: are boys and girls treated differently? We will first examine whether boys and girls are treated differently in terms of an important but not frequently studied type of investment in children: childcare time. For this purpose, we will use data from the Indian Time Use Survey, which collected information on how individuals allocate their time-including how much time they spend taking care of children. To square the novel methodology with the literature's previous findings, we will-combining our empirical methodology and data from the Indian Demographic and Health Surveys-further examine gender differences in other measures of child investments that have been studied in the literature before, such as vaccinations, vitamin supplementation and breastfeeding. Finally, to examine the importance of these investments, we will provide a rough estimate of how much of boy-girl differences in mortality rates are explained by boy-girl differences in investments using estimates from the literature of the effects of these investments on mortality.
The mortality rates for girls in India are higher than for boys-the opposite being true in developed countries-and it has been argued that in India boys are given better care than girls. We develop a novel methodology to answer the question: are boys and girls treated differently? We will first examine whether boys and girls are treated differently in terms of an important but not frequently studied type of investment in children: childcare time. We will use data from the Indian Time Use Survey, which collected information on how individuals allocate their time-including how much time they spend taking care of children. We will also examine gender differences in other measures of child investments, such as vaccinations, vitamin A intake and breastfeeding.
| Barcellos, Silvia Helena; Carvalho, Leandro S; Lleras-Muney, Adriana (2014) Child Gender and Parental Investments In India: Are Boys And Girls Treated Differently? Am Econ J Appl Econ 6:157-189 |
