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Can Policy Change Culture? Government Pension Plans and Traditional Kinship Practices

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  • Natalie Bau

Abstract

Policies may change the incentives that allow cultural practices to persist. To test this, I study matrilocality and patrilocality, kinship traditions that determine daughters' and sons' post-marriage residences, and thus, which gender lives with and supports parents in their old age. Two separate policy experiments in Ghana and Indonesia show that pension policies reduce the practice of these traditions. I also show that these traditions incentivize parents to invest in the education of children who traditionally coreside with them. Consequently, when pension plans change cultural practices, they also reduce educational investment. This finding further demonstrates that policy can change culture.

Suggested Citation

  • Natalie Bau, 2021. "Can Policy Change Culture? Government Pension Plans and Traditional Kinship Practices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(6), pages 1880-1917, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:111:y:2021:i:6:p:1880-1917
    DOI: 10.1257/aer.20190098
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Nava Ashraf & Natalie Bau & Nathan Nunn & Alessandra Voena, 2020. "Bride Price and Female Education," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(2), pages 591-641.
    2. Alberto Alesina & Paola Giuliano & Nathan Nunn, 2013. "On the Origins of Gender Roles: Women and the Plough," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(2), pages 469-530.
    3. Deon Filmer & Lant Pritchett, 2001. "Estimating Wealth Effects Without Expenditure Data—Or Tears: An Application To Educational Enrollments In States Of India," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 38(1), pages 115-132, February.
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G51 - Financial Economics - - Household Finance - - - Household Savings, Borrowing, Debt, and Wealth
    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J32 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Nonwage Labor Costs and Benefits; Retirement Plans; Private Pensions
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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