Flores-Martinez, Artemisa (2013) Women's empowerment and the welfare of children. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

Preview

Text WRAP_THESIS_Flores-Martinez_2013.pdf - Submitted Version Download (5Mb) | Preview

Request Changes to record.

Abstract

This thesis investigates whether women's empowerment affects children's wellbeing
in two developing countries: Mexico and India. The first chapter provides
a background on women's empowerment. The second chapter evaluates a conditional
cash transfer (CCT) program, which provides poor women in Mexico with
tools to be better mothers, in terms of its impact on birthweight. The third chapter
analyses whether empowered women, referred as those who have progressive
gender attitudes, are more likely to have a firstborn girl in Delhi, India.
Specifically, the second chapter evaluates PROGRESA-Oportunidades, a program
that pays mothers cash in exchange of their investment in their children's
human capital: education, health, and nutrition. Using quantile regressions, the
chapter finds a positive and significant program effect, but babies at the upper tail
of the conditional birthweight distribution seem to have benefited the most. Moreover,
maternal smoking during pregnancy is associated with a 459-gram decrease
on birthweights at the 20th percentile of the conditional distribution, completely
wiping out any program benefits. This effect is not picked up by least squares
regression estimates, which is the technique used by previous literature on the
subject.
The third chapter turns to India, a country that has lost millions of girls to
sex-selective abortions. The chapter first constructs a women's empowerment
(progressivity ) index using a latent factor model, and then assesses whether progressive
women are more likely to have a firstborn girl in Delhi. The latter territory
has, unlike the Indian average, 'missing' women even among first order births. The
results show that a one-standard deviation increase in the progressivity index is
associated with a 5.8-percentage point increase in the likelihood of a firstborn girl
relative to women who have not yet given birth.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Child welfare -- India, Women in development -- India, Power (Social sciences), Women in development -- Mexico, Child welfare -- Mexico, Child welfare -- Cross-cultural studies
Official Date:	December 2013
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Economics
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Arulampalam, Wiji; Smith, Jeremy (Jeremy P.)
Sponsors:	University of Warwick. Department of Economics; Mexico. Secretaría de Educación Pública (SEP)
Extent:	x, 240 leaves : charts.
Language:	eng

Request changes or add full text files to a record

Repository staff actions (login required)

View Item

Downloads