On gender and growth: The role of intergenerational health externalities and women's occupational constraints

Pierre-Richard Agénor, Otaviano Canuto and Luiz Pereira da Silva

Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 2014, vol. 30, issue C, 132-147

Abstract: This paper studies the growth effects of externalities associated with intergenerational health transmission, health persistence, and access to infrastructure (or lack thereof), which affects women's occupational choices. Following a brief review of the evidence on these issues, a gender-based overlapping generations (OLG) model of endogenous growth that captures these interactions is presented and its properties characterized. The endogeneity of mothers’ rearing time and rearing costs implies that improved access to infrastructure has in general an ambiguous effect on growth. Numerical experiments, based on a calibrated version of the model for low-income countries, show that it is possible for higher investment in infrastructure to actually reduce the steady-state growth rate. The possibility of multiple equilibria induced by an endogenous survival rate is also discussed, and so is the role of public policy in that context.

Keywords: Gender inequality; Public capital; Endogenous growth; Multiple equilibria (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I18 J16 J22 O41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Working Paper: On gender and growth: the role of intergenerational health externalities and women's occupational constraints (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:streco:v:30:y:2014:i:c:p:132-147

DOI: 10.1016/j.strueco.2014.05.002

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