Maternal investments in children: the role of expected effort and returns

Sonia Bhalotra, Adeline Delavande, Paulino Font-Gilabert and Joanna Maselko

No 2020-03, ISER Working Paper Series from Institute for Social and Economic Research

Abstract: We investigate the importance of subjective expectations of returns to and effort costs of the two main investments that mothers make in newborns: breastfeeding and stimulation. We find heterogeneity across mothers in expected effort costs and expected returns for outcomes in the cognitive, socio-emotional and health domains, and we show that this contributes to explaining heterogeneity in investments. We find no significant heterogeneity in preferences for child developmental outcomes. We simulate the impact of various policies on investments. Our findings highlight the relevance of interventions designed to reduce perinatal fatigue alongside interventions that increase perceived returns to investments.

Date: 2020-03-25
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/fi ... ers/iser/2020-03.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Maternal Investments in Children: The Role of Expected Effort and Returns (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ese:iserwp:2020-03

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
Publications Office, Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ UK
https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/publications/

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ISER Working Paper Series from Institute for Social and Economic Research Publications Office, Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ UK. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jonathan Nears ().