Baby Bonus, Fertility, and Missing Women

Wookun Kim

No 11215, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: This paper presents novel causal evidence on the effects of pro-natalist cash transfers on fertility, sex ratio at birth, and infant health. In the context of South Korea, I exploit rich spatial and temporal variation in cash transfers provided to families with newborn babies and the universe of birth-, death-, and migrant-registry records. I find that the total fertility rate in 2015 would have been 4.7% lower without the cash transfers. Surprisingly, the cash transfers had an unintended consequence of correcting the unnaturally male-skewed sex ratio at birth. The cash transfers led to reductions in gestational age and birth weight, but no change in early-life mortality. A rich heterogeneity analysis suggests that negative selection into childbearing may explain the health effects and that cash transfers may increase birth weight for low-income families.

Keywords: pro-natalist policies; cash transfer; fertility; infant health; sex ratio at birth; son preference (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H40 H75 J13 J16 J18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-inv
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11215

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