Replication data for: Why Are Indian Children So Short? The Role of Birth Order and Son Preference

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Seema Jayachandran; Rohini Pande

Version:  View help for Version V1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
  20151282_data 10/12/2019 05:10:AM
LICENSE.txt text/plain 14.6 KB 10/12/2019 01:10:AM

Project Citation: 

Jayachandran, Seema, and Pande, Rohini. Replication data for: Why Are Indian Children So Short? The Role of Birth Order and Son Preference. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2017. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2019-10-12. https://doi.org/10.3886/E113094V1

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary Child stunting in India exceeds that in poorer regions like sub-Saharan Africa. Data on over 168,000 children show that, relative to Africa, India's height disadvantage increases sharply with birth order. We posit that India's steep birth order gradient is due to favoritism toward eldest sons, which affects parents' fertility decisions and resource allocation across children. We show that, within India, the gradient is steeper for high-son-preference regions and religions. The gradient also varies with sibling gender as predicted. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that India's steeper birth order gradient can explain over one-half of the India-Africa gap in average child height.

Scope of Project

JEL Classification:  View help for JEL Classification
      I12 Health Behavior
      J13 Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
      O15 Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
      Z12 Cultural Economics: Religion
      Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification


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V1 [2019-10-12]

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