Resource Dependence and Intergenerational Transmission Effect

Pallavi Choudhuri
Sonalde B. Desai, India Human Development Survey

Our paper discusses how maternal work is associated with children’s study outcome, measured by study time and cognitive achievement in arithmetic test. The analysis involves distinguishing paid income-generating work versus unpaid work, measured as time spent in collecting and searching for firewood or fetching water. Our analysis show that maternal time spent in such unpaid work may be triggered by the resource dependent nature of rural village economies, where households spend considerable amount of time in such activities. While such dependencies may reflect household level choices, they also reflect larger challenges in village economies, stemming from either insufficient access to energy markets or inadequate village water supply infrastructure. With women on an average spending a greater share of time towards such activities, the findings, correcting for household-level selection bias, suggest that such higher share of time spent on unpaid work by mothers is adversely associated with children’s educational outcome.

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 Presented in Session 3. Population, Development, & the Environment; Data & Methods; Applied Demography