Measuring the Value of Children by Sex and Age Using a Dynamic Programming Model

Abstract

One of the important determinants of fertility is the value of children as perceived by parents. This paper estimates gender-and age-specific values of children using a dynamic programming model. The underlying hypothesis is that observed fertility outcome for any couple is the solution to their life-eyc1e optimization problem. Findings from the Korean data indicate that children impose net costs when young and net benefits when old. Both the early costs and the later benefits are larger for male children than female children, and for better-educated women than lowereducated women. Simulation studies which use estimated values of children suggest that a decrease in the costs of abortion and pre-natal gender-screening tests may raise the male-birth ratio through gender-selective abortions.

Obstacles to school progression in rural Pakistan: An analysis of gender and sibling rivalry using field survey data

“…Since n averages to approximately seven in the Pakistani households we surveyed, the structural estimation of such a model will be computationally intractable. Applications of this framework to development issues include estimates of fertility decisions using Malaysian data (Wolpin, 1984), sequential farm labor decisions using data from Burkina Faso (Fafchamps, 1993), bullock accumulationdecisions of Indian farmers (Rosenzweig and Wolpin, 1993), the gender-and age-specific values of Korean children (Ahn, 1995), and well investment decisions in India (Fafchamps and Pender, 1997). sequential schooling decision, controlling for individual unobserved heterogeneity.…”

Risk Aversion and Son Preference: Experimental Evidence from Chinese Twin Parents

“…Our paper contributes to the understanding of the causes of sex-ratio imbalance, which has been a subject of extensive studies by researchers and policy makers worldwide (Rosenzweig and Schultz, 1982;Ahn, 1995;Edlund, 1999;Oster, 2005;Lin and Luoh, 2008;Qian, 2008;Ebenstein and Leung, 2010). We study the insurance motive as a cause of the persistent son preference from the perspective of behavioral economics.…”

“…2 Studies suggest that low relative adult female earnings in traditional agrarian economies are an important factor in the persistence of son preference (Ben-Porath and Welch, 1976;Rosenzweig and Schultz, 1982;Ahn, 1995;Qian, 2008). Das Gapta et al (2013) suggest that adult sons' support of elderly parents contributes to the persistence in son preference in China, India, and South Korea.…”

Human population dynamics revisited with the logistic model: How much can be modeled and predicted?

“…In our opinion, anthropologists Marvin Harris and Eric Ross [38] offer the key to the problem (see also [39] for an economist's formalization) . Looking at reproductive control in historical perspective, Harris and Ross show that people always had the tools .…”