Persistence Of Income Inequality:Does Child Mortality Matter?

Dipanwita Sarkar () and Jayanta Sarkar

Journal of Developing Areas, 2012, vol. 46, issue 2, 105-123

Abstract: Many developing countries are afflicted by persistent inequality in the distribution of income. While a growing body of literature emphasize differential fertility as a channel through which income inequality persists, this paper investigates differential child mortality - differences in the incidence of child mortality across socioeconomic groups - as a critical link in this regard. Using evidence from cross-country data to evaluate this linkage, we find that differential child mortality serves as a stronger channel than differential fertility in the transmission of income inequality over time. We use random effects and generalized estimating equations techniques to account for temporal correlation within countries. The results are robust to the use of an alternate definition of fertility that reflects parental preference for children instead of realized fertility.

Keywords: Differential Child Mortality; Differential Fertility; Income Inequality; Channel of Transmission (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I1 J1 O1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_developing_areas/v046/46.2.sarkar.html

Related works:
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:jda:journl:vol.46:year:2012:issue2:pp:105-123

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Developing Areas from Tennessee State University, College of Business Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Abu N.M. Wahid ().