The Effect of Workforce Participation and Household Income Contribution on Women’s Healthcare Empowerment in Rural Bangladesh
By Hannah Wang
Abstract
Women in Bangladesh have gained increased access to paid work in the past decade yet
still experience limited choices and access to resources, which threatens their ability to exercise
control over healthcare for themselves and their children. Several collective household
bargaining theories hypothesize a link between women’s workforce participation and
empowerment. This paper uses a cross-sectional approach and survey data collected at the end of
a randomized trial field experiment in rural Bangladesh from 2007 to 2017 to examine health
empowerment outcomes for 7,151 young women ages 14 to 32. The results show that women
who work for income are expected to be more health empowered, specifically due to an
increased ability to make their own health decisions. As a woman contributes more income to her
household, her health empowerment is expected to increase, through increased abilities to make
her own health decisions, purchase medicine for herself, and seek medical treatment
independently. Greater mobility and stronger female-positive attitudes towards gender norms are
potential mechanisms through which paid work and household income contribution can translate
into health empowerment. Furthermore, higher total household income, having children, and
being more educated than her husband are expected to increase a woman’s health empowerment.
These results are significant while controlling for the effects of various individual and household
characteristics.
Professor Erica M. Field, Faculty Advisor
Professor Michelle P. Connolly, Faculty Advisor
JEL classification: J1; J16; I15
A perfect storm: The effect of natural disasters on child health
By Cheyenne Danielle Quijano
Abstract
Typhoons and their accompanying flooding have destructive effects, including an
increase in the risk of waterborne disease in children. Using a spatial regression discontinuity
design, I explore the immediate to short-term effects of flooding as a result
of Typhoon Labuyo on the incidence of diarrhea and acute respiratory infection in the
Philippines by comparing children living in a flooded barangay (town) to children living
just outside of the flooded area. I build on the existing literature by accounting for
both incidence and intensity of the typhoon’s flooding in my model. I construct this
new flooding measure using programming techniques and ArcGIS by manipulating data
collected by the University of Maryland’s Global Flood Monitoring System. This data
as well as health data from the 2013 Philippines National Demographic Health Surveys
were collected the day after Typhoon Labuyo left the Philippines, providing a unique
opportunity to explore the immediate impact of the typhoon on child health. Most of
my results are insignificant, but subgroup analyses show that the effect of flooding on
waterborne disease incidence is less impactful in the immediate term following a flood
and more impactful in the medium-term. This is important, because understanding
the detrimental health effects of flooding is of utmost importance, especially because
climate change will only increase the frequency and intensity of natural disasters.
Professor Erica M. Field, Faculty Advisor
Professor Michelle P. Connolly, Faculty Advisor
JEL classification: I150, O120, O130, Q540
Long-term Benefits of Breastfeeding: Impact on Education in Indonesia
By Natalie Gulrajani
Abstract
Healthy breastfeeding behaviors have been shown to produce many long-term health benefits
including improved cognition. This study uses data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey
(IFLS) to assess the longitudinal impact of exclusive breastfeeding duration and early life
breastfeeding practices on education. Though a positive correlation was found between
breastfeeding duration and years of schooling in naïve regressions, the significance and
magnitude of this effect decreased when household fixed effects were added. A stronger
correlation was found between early life breastfeeding and schooling, with income-stratified
results demonstrating that poorer households are potentially subject to greater benefits.
Professor Erica Field, Faculty Advisor
JEL classification: I0; I12; I21
Sister competition and birth order effects among marriage-aged girls: Evidence from a field experiment in rural Bangladesh
By Stephanie Zhong
Early marriage before the age of 18 is prevalent among adolescent girls in Bangladesh, but the timing of marriage is not uniform across daughters within a household, with some sisters marrying earlier than others. Using survey data from a novel field experiment from rural Bangladesh, I find that girls ages 10-21 with lower birth order tend to be married at a younger age, even when controlling for confounding nature of household size on birth order. Additionally, girls with younger sisters are more likely to be married and at a younger age than girls with younger brothers. The findings on dowry are inclusive.
Advisors: Dr. Erica Field and Dr. Michelle Connolly | JEL Codes: D13, J13, O15
The Puzzle of Mobile Money Markets: An Example of Goldilocks Conditions
By Ricardo Martínez-Cid and Gonzalo Pernas
This paper investigates the supply-side and demand-side factors that explain the success of mobile money markets. Namely, we argue that there exists a set of Goldilocks conditions that best supports mobile money services. A population must have exposure to financial services to understand mobile money and have a high enough level of income to have a use for these services. However, the population must also not have access to highly developed banking architecture, such that their banking needs are already satisfied. By comparing El Salvador and Kenya, countries in different stages of development, we find empirical support for our hypothesis. Our evidence suggests that low income regions and households with some exposure to financial services are more likely to use mobile money than fully banked people who enjoy a higher income.
Advisor: Erica Field | JEL Codes: E40, E42, G21, G23, O12, O16, O17
Effect of Slum Redevelopment on Child Health Outcomes: Evidence from Mumbai
By Suhani Jalota
As the population of urban poor living in slums increases, governments are trying to relocate people into government–provided free housing. Slum redevelopment affects every part of a household’s livelihood, but most importantly the health and wellbeing of younger generations. This paper investigates the effect of slum redevelopment schemes on child stunting levels. Data was collected in forty–one buildings under the slum–redevelopment program in Mumbai. The study demonstrates through a fixed effect regression analysis that an additional year of living in the building is associated with an increase in the height–for–age Z–score by 0.124 standard deviations. Possible explanations include an improvement in the overall hygienic environment, sanitation conditions, indoor air pollution, and access to health and water facilities. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that water contamination, loss of livelihood and increased expenses could worsen health outcomes for residents. This study prompts more research on the health effects of slum redevelopment projects, which are becoming increasingly common in the rapidly urbanizing developing world.
Advisor: Erica Field, Michelle Connolly | JEL Codes: O12, O14, O17, O18, O22 | Tagged: Urban infrastructure, Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development, Child health, Informal settlements, Project Analysis
The Impact of Micro-Banking on Health: Evidence from Self-Help Group Involvement and Child Nutrition
By Madeline Mckelway
Low income is only one nancial problem that poor families in developing countries face; impoverished households must also face irregularity of their low incomes. Self-help groups (SHGs) can enhance consumption stability by relaxing savings and credit constraints. In this study, I investigate the extent to which SHGs improve a particular dimension of household wellbeing: child nutrition. I analyze households aliated with the SHGs started by the People’s Education and Development Organization (P.E.D.O.) in rural Rajasthan, India. Children who had greater levels of exposure to household SHG membership at a young age have healthier anthropometric statuses than their siblings who had relatively less. This relationship does not appear to be driven by events coinciding with SHG involvement or by the tendency for certain children, who were also exposed to SHGs, to receive better nutrition than their siblings. These endings suggest that SHGs could improve child nutrition.
Advisor: Erica Field, Michelle Connolly | JEL Codes: O1, O12, O15, O16, O22 | Tagged: Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development; Human Resources for Economic Development; Financial Markets in Economic Development; Project Analysis
