Is Consanguinity an Impediment to Child Development?

Marriages between blood relatives—also known as consanguineous unions—are widespread in North Africa, Central and West Asia, and South Asia. Researchers have suggested that consanguinity has adverse effects on child development, but assessing its impact is not straightforward, as the decision to mar...

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Main Authors:	Mete, Cem, Bossavie, Laurent, Giles, John, Alderman, Harold
Format:	Journal Article
Published:	Taylor and Francis 2020
Subjects:	CONSANGUINEOUS MARRIAGE COGNITIVE TESTS DISABILITY MALNUTRITION DECISION-MAKING
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34410

id	okr-10986-34410
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-344102021-05-25T09:49:11Z Is Consanguinity an Impediment to Child Development? Mete, Cem Bossavie, Laurent Giles, John Alderman, Harold CONSANGUINEOUS MARRIAGE COGNITIVE TESTS DISABILITY MALNUTRITION DECISION-MAKING Marriages between blood relatives—also known as consanguineous unions—are widespread in North Africa, Central and West Asia, and South Asia. Researchers have suggested that consanguinity has adverse effects on child development, but assessing its impact is not straightforward, as the decision to marry a relative might be endogenous to other socio-economic factors. Using a unique data set collected in rural Pakistan, this paper assesses the extent to which consanguinity is linked to children’s cognitive and physical development. It exploits grandfathers’ land ownership (current and past) and maternal grandparent mortality to identify the effect of endogenous consanguinity on child development. Children born into consanguineous unions have lower cognitive scores, lower height-for-age, and a higher likelihood of being severely stunted. More importantly, adverse effects are greater after accounting for the endogeneity of consanguinity, suggesting that impacts on child development are substantial, and likely to be larger than suggested in previous studies. 2020-09-01T20:11:48Z 2020-09-01T20:11:48Z 2020-01-14 Journal Article Population Studies 0032-4728 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34410 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Taylor and Francis Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Journal Article Africa Middle East and North Africa South Asia Central Africa North Africa South Asia West Africa
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
topic	CONSANGUINEOUS MARRIAGE COGNITIVE TESTS DISABILITY MALNUTRITION DECISION-MAKING
spellingShingle	CONSANGUINEOUS MARRIAGE COGNITIVE TESTS DISABILITY MALNUTRITION DECISION-MAKING Mete, Cem Bossavie, Laurent Giles, John Alderman, Harold Is Consanguinity an Impediment to Child Development?
geographic_facet	Africa Middle East and North Africa South Asia Central Africa North Africa South Asia West Africa
description	Marriages between blood relatives—also known as consanguineous unions—are widespread in North Africa, Central and West Asia, and South Asia. Researchers have suggested that consanguinity has adverse effects on child development, but assessing its impact is not straightforward, as the decision to marry a relative might be endogenous to other socio-economic factors. Using a unique data set collected in rural Pakistan, this paper assesses the extent to which consanguinity is linked to children’s cognitive and physical development. It exploits grandfathers’ land ownership (current and past) and maternal grandparent mortality to identify the effect of endogenous consanguinity on child development. Children born into consanguineous unions have lower cognitive scores, lower height-for-age, and a higher likelihood of being severely stunted. More importantly, adverse effects are greater after accounting for the endogeneity of consanguinity, suggesting that impacts on child development are substantial, and likely to be larger than suggested in previous studies.
format	Journal Article
author	Mete, Cem Bossavie, Laurent Giles, John Alderman, Harold
author_facet	Mete, Cem Bossavie, Laurent Giles, John Alderman, Harold
author_sort	Mete, Cem
title	Is Consanguinity an Impediment to Child Development?
title_short	Is Consanguinity an Impediment to Child Development?
title_full	Is Consanguinity an Impediment to Child Development?
title_fullStr	Is Consanguinity an Impediment to Child Development?
title_full_unstemmed	Is Consanguinity an Impediment to Child Development?
title_sort	is consanguinity an impediment to child development?
publisher	Taylor and Francis
publishDate	2020
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34410
_version_	1764480841653682176

Is Consanguinity an Impediment to Child Development?

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