Big Sisters
This paper models household investments in young children when parents and older siblings share caregiving responsibilities and when investments by older siblings contribute to young children's human capital accumulation. To test the predictio...
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/384181603738785852/Big-Sisters http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34687 |
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okr-10986-346872022-09-20T00:11:04Z Big Sisters Jakiela, Pamela Ozier, Owen Fernald, Lia Knauer, Heather OLDER SIBLING SISTER GIRL POWER FAMILY CARE EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT HUMAN CAPITAL HOUSEHOLD STRUCTURE PARENTAL INVESTMENT NATURAL EXPERIMENT This paper models household investments in young children when parents and older siblings share caregiving responsibilities and when investments by older siblings contribute to young children's human capital accumulation. To test the predictions of the model, the paper estimates the impact of having one older sister (as opposed to one older brother) on early childhood development in a sample of rural Kenyan households with otherwise similar family structures. Older sibling gender is not related to household structure, subsequent birth spacing, or other observable characteristics, so the presence of an older girl (as opposed to an older boy) is treated as plausibly exogenous. Having an older sister rather than an older brother improves younger siblings' vocabulary and fine motor skills by more than 0.1 standard deviations. Viewed through the lens of the model, the empirical pattern shown here suggests that: (i) older siblings' investments in young children contribute to their human capital accumulation, and (ii) households perceive lower returns to investing in older girls than in older boys. 2020-10-29T13:34:51Z 2020-10-29T13:34:51Z 2020-10 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/384181603738785852/Big-Sisters http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34687 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9454 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper Africa Kenya |
| repository_type |
Digital Repository |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
Digital Repositories |
| building |
World Bank Open Knowledge Repository |
| collection |
World Bank |
| language |
English |
| topic |
OLDER SIBLING SISTER GIRL POWER FAMILY CARE EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT HUMAN CAPITAL HOUSEHOLD STRUCTURE PARENTAL INVESTMENT NATURAL EXPERIMENT |
| spellingShingle |
OLDER SIBLING SISTER GIRL POWER FAMILY CARE EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT HUMAN CAPITAL HOUSEHOLD STRUCTURE PARENTAL INVESTMENT NATURAL EXPERIMENT Jakiela, Pamela Ozier, Owen Fernald, Lia Knauer, Heather Big Sisters |
| geographic_facet |
Africa Kenya |
| relation |
Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9454 |
| description |
This paper models household investments
in young children when parents and older siblings share
caregiving responsibilities and when investments by older
siblings contribute to young children's human capital
accumulation. To test the predictions of the model, the
paper estimates the impact of having one older sister (as
opposed to one older brother) on early childhood development
in a sample of rural Kenyan households with otherwise
similar family structures. Older sibling gender is not
related to household structure, subsequent birth spacing, or
other observable characteristics, so the presence of an
older girl (as opposed to an older boy) is treated as
plausibly exogenous. Having an older sister rather than an
older brother improves younger siblings' vocabulary and
fine motor skills by more than 0.1 standard deviations.
Viewed through the lens of the model, the empirical pattern
shown here suggests that: (i) older siblings'
investments in young children contribute to their human
capital accumulation, and (ii) households perceive lower
returns to investing in older girls than in older boys. |
| format |
Working Paper |
| author |
Jakiela, Pamela Ozier, Owen Fernald, Lia Knauer, Heather |
| author_facet |
Jakiela, Pamela Ozier, Owen Fernald, Lia Knauer, Heather |
| author_sort |
Jakiela, Pamela |
| title |
Big Sisters |
| title_short |
Big Sisters |
| title_full |
Big Sisters |
| title_fullStr |
Big Sisters |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Big Sisters |
| title_sort |
big sisters |
| publisher |
World Bank, Washington, DC |
| publishDate |
2020 |
| url |
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/384181603738785852/Big-Sisters http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34687 |
| _version_ |
1764481434522746880 |