Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/93333
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 7969
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper shows that trade policy can have significant intergenerational distributional effects across gender and social strata. We compare women and births in rural Indian districts more or less exposed to tariff cuts. For low socioeconomic status women, tariff cuts increase the likelihood of a female birth and these daughters are less likely to die during infancy and childhood. On the contrary, high-status women are less likely to give birth to girls and their daughters have higher mortality rates when more exposed to tariff declines. Consistent with the fertility-sex ratio trade-off in high son preference societies, fertility increases for low-status women and decreases for high-status women. An exploration of the mechanisms suggests that the labor market returns for low-status women (relative to men) and high-status men (relative to women) have increased in response to trade liberalization. Thus, altered expectations about future returns from daughters relative to sons seem to have caused families to change the sex-composition of and health investments in their children.
Subjects: 
trade liberalization
India
gender
sex ratio
child mortality
fertility
JEL: 
F13
I15
J12
J13
J16
J82
O15
O18
O19
O24
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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