Why Are Indian Children So Short? The Role of Birth Order and Son Preference
- (pp. 2600-2629)
(Complimentary)
Abstract
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.Citation
Jayachandran, Seema, and Rohini Pande. 2017. "Why Are Indian Children So Short? The Role of Birth Order and Son Preference." American Economic Review, 107 (9): 2600-2629. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20151282Additional Materials
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