Development Economics Seminar

Du 08/02/2017 de 17:00 à 18:30

Campus Jourdan, 75014 Paris, bâtiment G, salle 8, rez-de-chaussée

BARHAM Tania ()

Thirty-Five Years Later: Evidence of Child Health and Family Planning on Economic and Migration Outcomes

Abstract: Improving the health and nutrition of young children is important not only for immediate well-being and human capital development, but also because it is believed to reduce poverty in the long-run in part through improved labor market outcomes. Many programs such as Head Start and Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs rely on this postulated link. However, little is known about the long-term effects of programs targeted to improve health and nutrition in early childhood on outcomes in adulthood. In this paper, we take advantage of the quasi-randomly placed Matlab Maternal and Child Health and Family Planning program that started in 1977, the phasing out of the program over time, and recent survey data collected by the authors to evaluate the effect of the program on labor market, investment, and migration outcomes. We use a single-difference model with birth year fixed-effects and baseline controls to examine the effects on three main age groups: 35-65 year olds born prior to the program (1947-1976), 30-34 years olds born when the family planning interventions were introduced (1977-1981) and 24-29 year olds born when both the family planning and child health interventions were available in the treatment area (1982-1988). Previous research shows the program led to important improvement in human capital in early and late childhood for those born when the intervention was available in the treatment area. We find that when these same children are adults, approximately aged 24-29, they are 20 percent less likely to migrate out of the study area, are more likely to have semi-professional or professional jobs, but on average do not earn more income or work more hours. The lack of effect on income is in part due to the lower migration rates, and hence lower incomes, among those eligible for the program.