The Impact of Education on Fertility and Child Mortality: Do Fathers Really Matter Less Than Mothers?

Lucia Breierova and Esther Duflo

No 10513, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper takes advantage of a massive school construction program that took place in Indonesia between 1973 and 1978 to estimate the effect of education on fertility and child mortality. Time and region varying exposure to the school construction program generates instrumental variables for the average education in the household, and the difference in education between husband and wife. We show that female education is a stronger determinant of age at marriage and early fertility than male education. However, female and male education seem equally important factors in reducing child mortality. We suggest that the OLS estimate of the differential effect of women's and men's education may be biased by failure to take in to account assortative matching.

JEL-codes: I12 I22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-hea and nep-lab
Date: 2004-05
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Working Paper: The Impact of Education on Fertility and Child Mortality: Do Fathers Really Matter Less Than Mothers? (2003)
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