IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/yaleeg/28506.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Family Planning as an Investment in Development: Evaluation of a Program's Consequences in Matlab, Bangladesh

Author

Listed:
  • Schultz, T. Paul
  • Joshi, Shareen

Abstract

The paper analyzes 141 villages in Matlab, Bangladesh from 1974 to 1996, in which half the villages received from 1977 to 1996 a door-to-door outreach family planning and maternal-child health program. Village and individual data confirm a decline in fertility of about 15 percent in the program villages compared with the control villages by 1982, as others have noted, which persists until 1996. The consequences of the program on a series of long run family welfare outcomes are then estimated in addition to fertility: women's health, earnings and household assets, use of preventive health inputs, and finally the inter-generational effects on the health and schooling of the woman's children. Within two decades many of these indicators of the welfare of women and their children improve significantly in conjunction with the program-induced decline in fertility and child mortality. This suggests social returns to this reproductive health program in rural South Asia have many facets beyond fertility reduction, which do not appear to dissipate over two decades.

Suggested Citation

  • Schultz, T. Paul & Joshi, Shareen, 2007. "Family Planning as an Investment in Development: Evaluation of a Program's Consequences in Matlab, Bangladesh," Center Discussion Papers 28506, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:yaleeg:28506
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.28506
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/28506/files/dp070951.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.28506?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James Tobie & H. S. Houthakker, 1950. "The Effects of Rationing on Demand Elasticities," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 18(3), pages 140-153.
    2. Sah, Raaj Kumar, 1991. "The Effects of Child Mortality Changes on Fertility Choice and Parental Welfare," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(3), pages 582-606, June.
    3. Rosenzweig, Mark R. & Paul Schultz, T., 1987. "Fertility and investments in human capital : Estimates of the consequence of imperfect fertility control in Malaysia," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1-2), pages 163-184.
    4. Becker, Gary S, 1974. "On the Relevance of the New Economics of the Family," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(2), pages 317-319, May.
    5. Schultz, T. Paul, 1988. "Population programs: Measuring their impact on fertility and the personal distribution of their effects," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 113-139, April.
    6. Gary S. Becker, 1981. "A Treatise on the Family," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck81-1.
    7. Fogel,Robert William, 2004. "The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700–2100," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521808781.
    8. Nikhil Roy & Andrew D. Foster, 1996. "The Dynamics of Education and Fertility: Evidence from a Family Planning Experiment"," Home Pages _073, University of Pennsylvania.
    9. Gary S. Becker & H. Gregg Lewis, 1974. "Interaction between Quantity and Quality of Children," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital, pages 81-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Schultz, T. Paul, 2008. "Population Policies, Fertility, Women's Human Capital, and Child Quality," Handbook of Development Economics, in: T. Paul Schultz & John A. Strauss (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 52, pages 3249-3303, Elsevier.
    11. James J. Heckman & Jeffrey Smith & Nancy Clements, 1997. "Making The Most Out Of Programme Evaluations and Social Experiments: Accounting For Heterogeneity in Programme Impacts," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(4), pages 487-535.
    12. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Introduction to "Schooling, Experience, and Earnings"," NBER Chapters, in: Schooling, Experience, and Earnings, pages 1-4, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Strauss, John & Thomas, Duncan, 1995. "Human resources: Empirical modeling of household and family decisions," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Hollis Chenery & T.N. Srinivasan (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 34, pages 1883-2023, Elsevier.
    14. Munshi, Kaivan & Myaux, Jacques, 2006. "Social norms and the fertility transition," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 1-38, June.
    15. Deon Filmer & Lant Pritchett, 1999. "The Effect of Household Wealth on Educational Attainment: Evidence from 35 Countries," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 25(1), pages 85-120, March.
    16. Strauss, J. & Thomas, D., 1995. "Empirical Modeling of Household and Family Decisions," Papers 95-12, RAND - Reprint Series.
    17. repec:ucp:bknber:9780226740867 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Deborah DeGraff, 1991. "Increasing contraceptive use in Bangladesh: The role of demand and supply factors," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 28(1), pages 65-81, February.
    19. Imbens, Guido W & Angrist, Joshua D, 1994. "Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 467-475, March.
    20. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Schooling and Earnings," NBER Chapters, in: Schooling, Experience, and Earnings, pages 41-63, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Schooling, Experience, and Earnings," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number minc74-1.
    22. Richard A. Easterlin, 1980. "Population and Economic Change in Developing Countries," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number east80-1.
    23. Sinha, Nistha, 2005. "Fertility, Child Work, and Schooling Consequences of Family Planning Programs: Evidence from an Experiment in Rural Bangladesh," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(1), pages 97-128, October.
    24. Rosenzweig, Mark R & Schultz, T Paul, 1983. "Estimating a Household Production Function: Heterogeneity, the Demand for Health Inputs, and Their Effects on Birth Weight," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(5), pages 723-746, October.
    25. Ben-Porath, Yoram, 1976. "Fertility Response to Child Mortality: Micro Data from Israel," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(4), pages 163-178, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Schultz, T. Paul, 2010. "Population and Health Policies," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4785-4881, Elsevier.
    2. Dr. Sumanash Dutta & Dr.Isla Uddin Choudhury, 2015. "Status of Household Background Characteristics and their Impacts on Educational Attainments of Children: An Empirical Study on Muslims," Indian Journal of Commerce and Management Studies, Educational Research Multimedia & Publications,India, vol. 6(2), pages 88-96, May.
    3. Schultz, T. Paul, 1997. "Assessing the productive benefits of nutrition and health: An integrated human capital approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 141-158, March.
    4. Norbert R. Schady, 2003. "Convexity and Sheepskin Effects in the Human Capital Earnings Function: Recent Evidence for Filipino Men," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 65(2), pages 171-196, May.
    5. James J. Heckman, 2015. "Introduction to A Theory of the Allocation of Time by Gary Becker," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0(583), pages 403-409, March.
    6. Jere R. Behrman & John Hoddinott & John A. Maluccio, & Erica Soler-Hampejsek & Emily L. Behrman & Reynaldo Martorell & Manuel Ramirez-Zea & Aryeh D. Stein, 2006. "What Determines Adult Cognitive Skills? Impacts of Pre-Schooling, Schooling and Post-Schooling Experiences in Guatemala," PIER Working Paper Archive 06-027, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    7. T. Paul Schultz, 1999. "Health and Schooling Investments in Africa," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 67-88, Summer.
    8. Schultz, T. Paul, 2003. "Human Resources in China: The Birth Quota, Returns to Schooling, and Migration," Center Discussion Papers 28437, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    9. Balestra, Simone & Backes-Gellner, Uschi, 2017. "Heterogeneous returns to education over the wage distribution: Who profits the most?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 89-105.
    10. Jere R. Behrman, 1994. "Intra-family Distribution in Developing Countries," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 33(3), pages 253-296.
    11. Oliveira, Jaqueline, 2016. "The value of children: Inter-generational support, fertility, and human capital," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 1-16.
    12. Cohen, Daniel & Leker, Laura, 2014. "Health and Education: Another Look with the Proper Data," CEPR Discussion Papers 9940, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Schultz, T. Paul, 2008. "Population Policies, Fertility, Women's Human Capital, and Child Quality," Handbook of Development Economics, in: T. Paul Schultz & John A. Strauss (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 52, pages 3249-3303, Elsevier.
    14. Birner, Regina & Davis, Kristin & Pender, John & Nkonya, Ephraim & Anandajayasekeram, Ponniah & Ekboir, Javier & Mbabu, Adiel & Spielman, David & Horna, Daniela & Benin, Samuel & Cohen, Marc J., 2006. "From "best practice" to "best fit": a framework for designing and analyzing pluralistic agricultural advisory services worldwide," FCND discussion papers 210, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    15. Heckman, James J. & Humphries, John Eric & Veramendi, Gregory, 2016. "Dynamic treatment effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 191(2), pages 276-292.
    16. T. Paul Schultz, 2003. "Human Capital, Schooling and Health Returns," Working Papers 853, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    17. Holmes, Jessica, 1999. "Measuring the Determinants of School Completion in Pakistan: Analysis of Censoring and Selection Bias," Center Discussion Papers 28530, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    18. Vosti, Stephen A. & Witcover, Julie & Lipton, Michael, 1994. "The impact of technical change in agriculture on human fertility: district-level evidence from India," EPTD discussion papers 5, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    19. Yao, Yao & Chen, George S. & Salim, Ruhul & Yu, Xiaojun, 2018. "Schooling returns for migrant workers in China: Estimations from the perspective of the institutional environment in a rural setting," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 240-256.
    20. Jessica Holmes, 1999. "Measuring the Determinants of School Completion in Pakistan: Analysis of Censoring and Selection Bias," Working Papers 794, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Health Economics and Policy;

    JEL classification:

    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:yaleeg:28506. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/egyalus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.