A Bit of Salt, a Trace of Life: Gender Norms and the Impact of a Salt Iodization Program on Human Capital Formation of School Aged Children

Zichen Deng () and Maarten Lindeboom ()
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Zichen Deng: University of Amsterdam
Maarten Lindeboom: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

No 12629, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper examines the effects of a massive salt iodization program on human capital formation of school-aged children in China. Exploiting province and time variation we find strong positive effects on cognition for girls and no effects for boys. For non-cognitive skills we find the opposite. We show in a simple model of parental investment that gender preferences can explain our findings. Analyses exploiting within province, village level variation in gender attitudes confirm the importance of parental gender preferences. Consequently, large scale programs can have positive (and possibly) unintended effects on gender equality in societies where boy preferences are important.

Keywords: cognitive skills; gender attitudes; parental investments; iodine; non-cognitive skills (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I15 J16 J24 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 59 pages
Date: 2019-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-gen, nep-neu and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published - published in: Journal of Health Economics, 2022, 83, 102615

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