Mothers Care More, but Fathers Decide: Educating Parents about Child Health in Uganda
American Economic Review
vol. 107,
no. 5, May 2017
(pp. 496-500)
Abstract
Research on intrahousehold decision-making generally finds that fathers have more bargaining power than mothers, but mothers put more weight on children's well-being. This suggests a tradeoff when targeting policies to improve child health: fathers have more power to change household behavior in ways that improve child health, but mothers might have a stronger desire to do so. This paper compares health classes in Uganda that enrolled either mothers or fathers. We find that educating mothers leads to greater adoption of health-promoting behaviors by the household. In addition, educating one parent leads to positive spillovers on the other spouse's health behaviors.Citation
Björkman Nyqvist, Martina, and Seema Jayachandran. 2017. "Mothers Care More, but Fathers Decide: Educating Parents about Child Health in Uganda." American Economic Review, 107 (5): 496-500. DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20171103Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- H51 National Government Expenditures and Health
- I11 Analysis of Health Care Markets
- I14 Health and Inequality
- I18 Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
- J12 Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure; Domestic Abuse
- J13 Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
- O15 Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration