Measuring Family Planning Program Effort at the Provincial Level: A Vietnam Application

San, Pham Bich; Ross, John A.; Phuong, Nguyen Lan; Vinh, Nguyen Duc

doi:10.2307/2991895

“…36 Indeed, the provincial governments were observed to be responsible for all work related to family planning and for mothers and children's health in general (Vu 1994), which should include the establishment of family planning centers. This is corroborated by an analysis of a survey of local governments' family planning efforts in fifteen provinces across Vietnam by San et al (1999), which finds that effort strength is mostly driven by the quality of local governments' leadership and implementation ability, rather than local conditions such as geographical terrain or the level of economic development. 37 Still, some variation of the location (and timing) of family planning center may stem from differences in local governments' resources: communes with more resources might have been more likely to build a family planning center earlier.…”

Section: Distance To Family Planning Center As Instrumentmentioning

confidence: 82%

“…37. San et al (1999) also provide some evidence that their selected 15 provinces share many characteristics of the overall functioning of the national family planning program. earlier.…”

Section: Distance To Family Planning Center As Instrumentmentioning

confidence: 96%

The Decision to Invest in Child Quality over Quantity: Household Size and Household Investment in Education in Vietnam

Dang¹,

Rogers²

2015

World Bank Econ Rev

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During Vietnam's two decades of rapid economic growth, its fertility rate has fallen sharply at the same time that its educational attainment has risen rapidly-macro trends that are consistent with the hypothesis of a quantity-quality tradeoff in child-rearing. We investigate whether the micro-level evidence supports the hypothesis that Vietnamese parents are in fact making a tradeoff between quantity and "quality" of children. We present private tutoring-a widespread education phenomenon in Vietnam-as a new measure of household investment in children's quality, combining it with traditional measures of household education investments. To assess the quantity-quality tradeoff, we instrument for family size using the commune distance to the nearest family planning center. Our IV estimation results based on data from the Vietnam Household Living Standards Surveys (VHLSSs) and other sources show that rural families do indeed invest less in the education of school-age children who have larger numbers of siblings. This effect holds for several different indicators of educational investment and is robust to different definitions of family size, identification strategies, and model specifications that control for community characteristics as well as the distance to the city center. Finally, our estimation results suggest that private tutoring may be a better measure of quality-oriented household investments in education than traditional measures like enrollment, which are arguably less nuanced and less household-driven. JEL: I22, I28, J13, O15, O53, P36

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“…37. San et al (1999) also provide some evidence that their selected 15 provinces share many characteristics of the overall functioning of the national family planning program.…”

Section: Distance To Family Planning Center As Instrumentmentioning

confidence: 96%

The Decision to Invest in Child Quality over Quantity: Household Size and Household Investment in Education in Vietnam

Dang¹,

Rogers²

2013

Policy Research Working Papers

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During Vietnam's two decades of rapid economic growth, its fertility rate has fallen sharply at the same time that its educational attainment has risen rapidly-macro trends that are consistent with the hypothesis of a quantity-quality tradeoff in child-rearing. We investigate whether the micro-level evidence supports the hypothesis that Vietnamese parents are in fact making a tradeoff between quantity and "quality" of children. We present private tutoring-a widespread education phenomenon in Vietnam-as a new measure of household investment in children's quality, combining it with traditional measures of household education investments. To assess the quantity-quality tradeoff, we instrument for family size using the commune distance to the nearest family planning center. Our IV estimation results based on data from the Vietnam Household Living Standards Surveys (VHLSSs) and other sources show that rural families do indeed invest less in the education of school-age children who have larger numbers of siblings. This effect holds for several different indicators of educational investment and is robust to different definitions of family size, identification strategies, and model specifications that control for community characteristics as well as the distance to the city center. Finally, our estimation results suggest that private tutoring may be a better measure of quality-oriented household investments in education than traditional measures like enrollment, which are arguably less nuanced and less household-driven. JEL: I22,

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“…While little data exist on the local conditions when family planning centers were set up, it is generally the case with most policy implementation in Vietnam that the central government sets the national policies but it is the local governments that ultimately decide exactly how these policies will be implemented. 29 Thus the establishment of family planning centers was most likely decided by local 30 San et al (1999) also provide some evidence that their selected 15 provinces share many characteristics of the overall functioning of the national family planning program. 31 This check does not hold in the opposite direction since older centers may also be effective through other channels that are uncorrelated with endogeneity of location (e.g., longer existence simply increases the chances…”

Section: Distance To Family Planning Center As Instrumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Decision to Invest in Child Quality Over Quantity: Household Size and Household Investment in Education in Vietnam

Dang

¹

,

Rogers²

2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Measuring Family Planning Program Effort at the Provincial Level: A Vietnam Application

Cited by 10 publications

References 1 publication

The Decision to Invest in Child Quality over Quantity: Household Size and Household Investment in Education in Vietnam

The Decision to Invest in Child Quality over Quantity: Household Size and Household Investment in Education in Vietnam

The Decision to Invest in Child Quality over Quantity: Household Size and Household Investment in Education in Vietnam

The Decision to Invest in Child Quality Over Quantity: Household Size and Household Investment in Education in Vietnam

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