Vés enrere CRES Seminar - Tania Barham (University of Boulder Colorado)

CRES Seminar - Tania Barham (University of Boulder Colorado)

February 20th - at 13h - Tania Barham (University of Boulder Colorado) - Thirty-Five Years Later: Effects of a Child Health and Family Planning Program on Economic and Migration Outcomes - Room: 24.021 (Mercè Rodoreda Building). Check the abstract. 

02.02.2017

 

Thirty-Five Years Later: Effects of a Child Health and Family Planning Program on Economic and Migration Outcomes

Date: 20th February - at 13h

Room: 24.021 (Mercè Rodoreda Building) – Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona

Abstract: Improving the health and nutrition of young children is important not only for immediate well-being and human capital development, but also because it is believed to reduce poverty in the long-run in part through improved labor market outcomes. Many programs such as Head Start and Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs rely on this postulated link. However, little is known about the long-term effects of programs targeted to improve health and nutrition in early childhood on outcomes in adulthood. In this paper, we take advantage of the quasi-randomly placed Matlab Maternal and Child Health and Family Planning program that started in 1977, the phasing out of the program over time, and recent survey data collected by the authors to evaluate the effect of the program on labor market, investment, and migration outcomes. We use a single-difference model with birth year fixed-effects and baseline controls to examine the effects on three main age groups: 35-65 year olds born prior to the program (1947-1976), 30-34 years olds born when the family planning interventions were introduced (1977-1981) and 24-29 year olds born when both the family planning and child health interventions were available in the treatment area (1982-1988). Previous research shows the program led to important improvement in human capital in early and late childhood for those born when the intervention was available in the treatment area. We find that when these same children are adults, approximately aged 24-29, they are 20 percent less likely to migrate out of the study area, are more likely to have semi-professional or professional jobs, but on average do not earn more income or work more hours. The lack of effect on income is in part due to the lower migration rates, and hence lower incomes, among those eligible for the program.

 

Biography

Tania Barham is an associate professor in The Department of Economics and Institute of Behavioral Science from the University of Boulder Colorado. She received her PhD from the University of Berkeley in Agriculture and Resource Economics Program. Her primary research interests are in development and health economics, with a focus on human capital development and poverty reduction. Much of her work to date focuses on the effects of early life intervention on human capital accumulation and later life employment outcomes from a number of large social programs including conditional cash transfers and child health and family programs.  Her research in this area has entailed extensive survey data collection including in Nicaragua and Bangladesh. She also has projects in the US including a randomized experiment in Colorado that examines the effects of a government program that subsidizes wage for the long-term unemployed. In the past she worked for the World Bank and continues to collaborate with the international development banks on her research.

 

http://www.colorado.edu/ibs/hs/barham/

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