Demand for informal caregiving and human capital accumulation: Evidence from elderly deaths in Senegal

Thomas Thivillon
Additional contact information
Thomas Thivillon: BSE - Bordeaux sciences économiques - UB - Université de Bordeaux - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: This paper uses original panel data from Senegal to evaluate the effect of elderly household members' deaths on the educational attainment of female children. Using a triple-difference strategy with child fixed-effects, I show that the death of a co-resident aged 60 or older is associated with 20% additional education completed over a period of 4 years by affected girls. I present evidence that changes in demand for informal caregiving among adolescent girls within the household are one of the mechanisms at play. These results highlight the central role of female teenagers in caregiving activities and suggest that policies that increase the availability of formal care for the elderly could reduce gender inequalities in education in contexts similar to Senegal.

Keywords: Africa; Senegal; Education; Gender inequalities; Aging; Child labor (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-12
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in Journal of Health Economics, 2025, 104, pp.103076. ⟨10.1016/j.jhealeco.2025.103076⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:hal:journl:hal-05428629

DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2025.103076

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().