My paper with Bijetri Bose and Shamma Alam, "Impacts of the COVID-19 lockdown on healthcare inaccessibility and unaffordability in Uganda," is now available as Ahead of Print at American Journal of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene.
I have a new working paper on how fertility behavior in Sub-Saharan Africa differ from Latin America, East Asia, and South Asia. The paper examines completed fertility using all DHS and MICS data from the four regions. Abstract is below and the Online Appendix is here.
Sub-Saharan Africa's fertility decline has progressed much slower than elsewhere. However, there is still substantial disagreement about why, partly because four leading potential causes—cultural norms, expected offspring mortality, land access, and school quality—are challenging to measure. I use large-scale woman-level data to infer what role each explanation plays in fertility differences between Sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia, South Asia, and Latin America, based on estimations of fertility outcomes by region, cohort, area of residence, and grade level. I show that the differences in fertility between Sub-Saharan Africa and the other regions first increase and then decrease with years of education. For women without education, fertility rates in Sub-Saharan Africa are comparable to those in Latin America. Similarly, for women with secondary education or higher, fertility rates in Sub-Saharan Africa align with those in South and East Asia. There are substantial and statistically significant differences for women with some primary education for all three comparison regions. The differences are more pronounced for children ever born than for surviving children. Overall, the results suggest that offspring mortality and the lower quality of primary schooling are the dominant reasons why fertility decline in Sub-Saharan Africa lags behind other regions.
Bijetri Bose, Shamma Alam, and I have a new paper, "Impacts of the COVID-19 Lockdown on Healthcare Inaccessibility and Unaffordability in Uganda," forthcoming in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. The abstract is:
Several studies have reported adverse consequences of the COVID-19 lockdowns on the utilization of healthcare services across Africa. However, little is known about the channels through which lockdowns impacted healthcare utilization. This study focuses on unaffordability as a reason for not utilizing healthcare services. We estimate the causal impacts of the COVID-19 lockdown on healthcare inaccessibility and affordability in Uganda relative to the nonlockdown periods of the pandemic. We use nationally representative longitudinal household data and a household fixed-effects model to identify the impact of the lockdown on whether households could not access medical treatment and whether the reason for not getting care was the lack of money. We find that the lockdown in Uganda was associated with an 8.4% higher likelihood of respondents being unable to access healthcare when treatment was needed relative to the nonlockdown periods. This implies a 122% increase in the share of respondents unable to access healthcare. As lockdown restrictions eased, the likelihood of being unable to access medical treatment decreased. The main reason for the increase in inaccessibility was the lack of money, with a 71% increase in the likelihood of respondents being unable to afford treatment. We find little evidence that the effects of the lockdown differed by wealth status or area of residence. Our results indicate the need for policymakers to consider immediate social support for households as a strategy for balancing the disruptions caused by lockdowns.
Shamma Alam, Ishraq Ahmed, and I have a new working paper out examining the effects on food insecurity from Uganda's two Covid lockdowns. Abstract is below:
We examine the short- and medium-run impacts of two of the strictest Covid-19 lockdowns in the developing world, employing longitudinal data from Uganda. Household fixedeffects estimations show significant, immediate increases in food insecurity after the first lockdown and a continued negative impact three months after its lifting. The second lockdown’s medium-term impact was even worse, likely because of a compounding effect of a concurrent drought. The rising food insecurity was partly the result of the lockdownrelated reductions in the availability of paid work. Agricultural households were more likely to continue working and consequently saw smaller increases in food insecurity. Furthermore, the likelihood of engaging in agricultural work increased after the first lockdown, suggesting a switch to agriculture as a coping mechanism. The other coping mechanisms that households typically rely on for idiosyncratic shocks failed in the face of a worldwide shock, contributing to the sizeable increase in food insecurity.
My paper, "Birth Spacing and Fertility in the Presence of Son Preference and Sex-Selective Abortions: India's Experience Over Four Decades," is now available ahead of print on Demography's website: https://doi.org/10.1215/00703370-9580703. Demography is now an open-access journal, so the PDF is free to download for everybody. The paper should be out in the first 2022 issue.
My paper, "Birth Spacing and Fertility in the Presence of Son Preference and Sex-Selective Abortions: India's Experience Over Four Decades," is now in line for publication in Demography. The likely publication date is December 2021. Until then, you can find the final version here, together with the online appendix, and the GitHub repository with the paper and code (note, you will have to get the data yourself from DHS).
My paper on birth spacing in India has been conditionally accepted at Demography. The new version based on Editor and referee comments is now available.
The new abstract is below:
Over the past four decades, the Hindu women in India most likely to use sex-selective abortions—well-educated women with no sons—had the most substantial lengthening of birth intervals and the most biased sex ratios. As a result, we now see cases that reverse the traditional spacing pattern, with some women with no sons having longer birth intervals than those with sons. Those least likely to use sex-selective abortions—less-educated women in rural areas—still follow the traditional pattern of short spacing when they have girls, with only limited evidence of sex selection. Because of the rapid lengthening in spacing, the standard fertility rates substantially overestimated how fast cohort fertility fell. Despite a convergence, cohort fertility is still 10%–20% higher than the fertility rate and above replacement level for all but the best-educated urban women. Infant mortality has declined substantially over time for all groups, with the fastest decline among the less educated. Short birth spacing is still associated with higher mortality, although considerably less so for the best-educated women. There is no evidence that repeated sex-selective abortions are associated with higher infant mortality for the child eventually born. Finally, it does not appear that the use of sex selection is declining.
I am looking for a research assistant (RA) for a project that examines how the determinants of urban fertility vary across countries and to help organize a conference around the same topic. The RA will assist with data management, literature searches, and running estimations. The ideal candidate is interested in quantitative analyses, has a working knowledge of RStudio, and can commit to 5-10 hours a week for the Fall quarter. The pay is $16 an hour, and the hours are flexible. To apply, please email me a short statement of interest, a resume, an unofficial transcript, and an example of your R code, if you have one, by close of business Monday 21 October 2019.
Please contact me if you have any questions about the project or the position.
PS To apply for this position, you have to be a student at Seattle University (graduate or undergraduate).
One would expect that online labor markets are competitive. After all, there are many employers and many employees, and most of the labor markets have a high degree of flexibility. Recent papers suggest, however, that employers have substantial market power, even in markets such as Mechanical Turk. This is based on a low labor supply elasticity facing employers (if an employer changes the offered wage, the response in terms of how many people will want to work is relatively small). In a new paper, "What Labor Supply Elasticities do Employers Face? Evidence from Field Experiments," Nail Hassairi and I, show, using experimental data from Mechanical Turk, that this result is likely due to the way prior experiments and research was done. The paper is available here and the abstract is below.
We provide experimental evidence on the labor supply elasticity faced by employers, which is an essential measure of employer market power. We offered two different types of jobs, each with large randomized variations in pay, and observed the amount of work performed. We find no evidence of the strong employer market power suggested by prior research, with our elasticities close to unity. Furthermore, elasticities based on the total amount of work are significantly larger than if we use worker-level data as prior studies have done. Finally, elasticities differ by job type, suggesting that worker characteristics play a crucial role.
My latest paper, on how birth spacing changed in India with the introduction of sex selection, is now available. I am presenting a poster on this paper this coming Friday at the Population Association of America's annual meeting in Denver.
Title:
Abstract:
Strong son preference is typically associated with shorter birth spacing in the absence of sons, but access to sex selection has the potential to reverse this pattern because each abortion extends spacing by six to twelve months. I introduce a statistical method that simultaneously accounts for how sex selection increases the spacing between births and the likelihood of a son. Using four rounds of India’s National Family and Health Surveys, I show that, except for first births, the spacing between births increased substantially over the last four decades, with the most substantial increases among women most likely to use sex selection. Specifically, well-educated women with no boys now exhibit significantly longer spacing and more male-biased sex ratios than similar women with boys. Women with no education still follow the standard pattern of short spacing when they have girls and little evidence of sex selection, with medium-educated women showing mixed results. Finally, sex ratios are more likely to decline within spells at lower parities, where there is less pressure to ensure a son, and more likely to increase or remain consistently high for higher-order spells, where the pressure to provide a son is high.
My paper with Shamma Alam on shocks and timing of fertility in Tanzania, which forthcoming in Journal of Development Economics, is now available here. A free version if available until early February through this link.
My paper with Yu-hsuan Su on child health across urban, slums, and rural area, which is forthcoming in Demography, is available here.
I am looking for a research assistant (RA) to work on a project that examine how determinants of urban fertility vary across countries. The RA will be help clean and merge data from many different countries, research education systems in these countries, code variables, and, if time permits, run analyses. The minimum requirements are a working knowledge of RStudio (for example, currently taking or having taken an upper-level undergraduate course like Econ 4770 or similar), great attention to detail, and the ability to commit to 5-10 hours a week of work for the Fall quarter. A knowledge of other programming languages, GitHub, and basic Unix commands would be a plus since all work will be done on a University of Washington server.
The pay will be $15 an hour and hours are flexible. To apply please email me a short statement of interest, a resume, an unoffical transcript, and an example of your R code by close of business 6 October. Shortlisted candidates may receive a short "test" assignment based on the project.
Please contact me if you have any questions about the project or the position.
PS To apply for this position, you have to be a student at Seattle University (graduate or undergraduate).
My paper with Yu-hsuan Su, "Differences in Child Health across Rural, Urban, and Slum Areas: Evidence from India," has been accepted for publication in Demography. The final version is here and the abstract for the paper is below.
The developing world is rapidly urbanizing, but our understanding of how child health differs across urban and rural areas is lacking. We examine the association between area of residence and child health in India, focusing on composition and selection effects. Simple height-for-age averages show that rural Indian children have the poorest health and urban children the best, with slum children in between. Controlling for wealth or observed health environment, the urban height-for-age advantage disappears, and slum children fare significantly worse than their rural counterparts. Hence, differences in composition across areas mask a substantial negative association between living in slums and height-for-age. This association is more negative for girls than boys. Furthermore, a large number of girls are "missing" in slums. We argue that this implies that the negative association between living in slums and health is even stronger than our estimate. The "missing" girls also help explain why slum girls appear to have a substantially lower mortality than rural girls do, whereas slum boys have a higher mortality risk than rural boys do. We estimate that slum conditions–which the survey does not adequately capture, such as overcrowding and open sewers–are associated with 20-37% of slum children's stunting risk.
A new version of my paper on sex-selective abortion, fertility, and birth spacing in India is now available. The major change from the prior version is new theoretical model that better ties the theoretical and empirical parts of the paper together plus many edits throughout the paper. The new version is available here and the new online appendix here.
Shamma Alam and I just finished a paper on the effects of income shocks on the timing of fertility in Tanzania using the Kagera data set. There are significant reductions in the likelihoods of being pregnant and giving birth following shocks, consistent with prior results in the literature. What is new is that we can show that this is predominately the results of an increased use of contraceptives. This is interesting for two reasons. First, it shows that the postponement of fertility following a shock is the result of an conscious decision, rather than being an unintended consequence of the shocks' effect on, for example, health or migration. Second, the postponement is achieved almost entirely through the use of traditional contraceptives. This shows that, once the incentives are strong enough, people are able to control their fertility even in the absence of modern contraceptives. The full abstract is:
This paper examines the relationship between household income shocks and fertility decisions. Using panel data from Tanzania, we estimate the impact of agricultural shocks on pregnancy, births, and contraception use. We estimate individual level fixed effect models to account for potential correlation between unobservable household characteristics and both shocks and decisions on fertility and contraceptive use. The likelihood of pregnancies and childbirth are significantly lower for households that experience a crop shock. Furthermore, women significantly increase their contraception use in response to crop losses. We find little evidence that the response to crop loss depends on education or wealth levels. The increase in contraceptive use comes almost entirely from traditional contraceptive methods, such as abstinence, withdrawal, and the rhythm method. We argue that these changes in behavior are the result of deliberate decisions of the households rather than the shocks' effects on other factors that influence fertility, such as women’s health status, the absence or migration of a spouse, the dissolution of partnerships, or the number of hours worked. We also show that, although traditional contraceptives have low overall efficacy, households with a strong incentive to postpone fertility are very effective at using them.