The ability of households to diversify their income sources is strongly related to their capacity to cope in times of pressure, such as during economic crises. This is particularly so among the poor, who often do not have adequate resources on which to draw when under such pressures. Households...

In sub-Saharan Africa, 60 % of child deaths are preventable by investments in child health as simple as immunizations, bed nets, or water purification. This article investigates how a household’s decisions regarding such investments are affected by the size and gender composition of a...

Building on anthropological evidence, we develop a model of intra-household decision making on fertility and child survival within the framework of the collective household model. We carry out a test of the implications of this framework with data from Demographic and Health Surveys in rural...

This paper estimates the impact of the extension of compulsory schooling in Turkey from 5 to 8 years—which increased the 8th grade completion rate for women by 30 percentage points—on marriage and birth outcomes of teenage women in Turkey. We find that increased compulsory schooling years...

We propose a causal analysis of the mother’s educational level on the health status of the newborn, in terms of gestational weeks and weight. The analysis is based on a finite mixture structural equation model, the parameters of which have a causal interpretation. The model is applied to a...

Research on child custody primarily focuses on the well-being of children following divorce. We extend this literature by examining how the prospect of joint child custody affects marriage-specific investment in children’s private-school education. Variation in the timing of joint-custody...

Service was one of the main characteristics of the European Marriage Pattern in pre-industrial western Europe. During this stage of the life cycle adolescents could acquire the material assets and skills that were required to marry and start an independent household. Whilst in service, servants...

The allocation of resources within households may not be equal, and this may lead to different outcomes including health outcomes for household members. This paper investigates whether child nutrition inequalities are attributable to differences between households or differences within...

The aim of this paper is to determine the significant variables in the fertility patterns of the Roma population in Spain. Family and home production are two of the idiosyncratic features of this minority group, and our theoretical and empirical analyses take account of both, as well as other...