The Gender and Intergenerational Consequences of the Demographic Dividend

The demographic transition changes the age composition of a population, potentially affecting resource allocation at the household level and exerting general equilibrium effects at the aggregate level. If age profiles of income, consumption, and savings were stable and estimable for the entire popul...

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Main Author: Schultz, T. Paul
Format: Journal Article
Published: World Bank 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4509
id okr-10986-4509
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-45092021-04-23T14:02:18Z The Gender and Intergenerational Consequences of the Demographic Dividend Schultz, T. Paul child care child health decline in fertility demographic transition economic growth elderly family planning family resources fertility health of women household level household surveys human capital labor market labor supply national populations reproductive health resource allocation sex unwanted childbearing The demographic transition changes the age composition of a population, potentially affecting resource allocation at the household level and exerting general equilibrium effects at the aggregate level. If age profiles of income, consumption, and savings were stable and estimable for the entire population, they might imply how the demographic transition would affect national savings rates, but there is little agreement on the impact of age composition. These age profiles differ by gender and are affected by human capital investments, whereas existing microsimulations are estimated from samples of wage earners that are not distinguished by sex or schooling and make no effort to model family labor supply behavior or physical and human capital accumulation. Considering these shortcomings of assessments of the "demographic dividend," a case study based on household surveys and long-run social experiments may be more informative. Matlab, Bangladesh, extended a family planning and maternal and child health program to half the villages in the district in 1977, and recorded fertility in the program villages was 15–16 percent lower than in the control villages for two decades. Households in the program villages realized health and productivity gains that were concentrated among women, survival and schooling increased among children, and after 19 years household physical assets were 25 percent greater per adult than in the control villages. These large gains in the wake of the program-induced demographic transition suggest reasons for designing new labor market and microcredit policies to help women during the demographic transition invest in productive skills; shift their time more efficiently from child care to home production, self-employment, and wage labor; and invest more in the human capital of their children. 2012-03-30T07:12:38Z 2012-03-30T07:12:38Z 2009-11-30 Journal Article World Bank Economic Review 1564-698X http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4509 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank Journal Article Bangladesh
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
topic child care
child health
decline in fertility
demographic transition
economic growth
elderly
family planning
family resources
fertility
health of women
household level
household surveys
human capital
labor market
labor supply
national populations
reproductive health
resource allocation
sex
unwanted childbearing
spellingShingle child care
child health
decline in fertility
demographic transition
economic growth
elderly
family planning
family resources
fertility
health of women
household level
household surveys
human capital
labor market
labor supply
national populations
reproductive health
resource allocation
sex
unwanted childbearing
Schultz, T. Paul
The Gender and Intergenerational Consequences of the Demographic Dividend
geographic_facet Bangladesh
description The demographic transition changes the age composition of a population, potentially affecting resource allocation at the household level and exerting general equilibrium effects at the aggregate level. If age profiles of income, consumption, and savings were stable and estimable for the entire population, they might imply how the demographic transition would affect national savings rates, but there is little agreement on the impact of age composition. These age profiles differ by gender and are affected by human capital investments, whereas existing microsimulations are estimated from samples of wage earners that are not distinguished by sex or schooling and make no effort to model family labor supply behavior or physical and human capital accumulation. Considering these shortcomings of assessments of the "demographic dividend," a case study based on household surveys and long-run social experiments may be more informative. Matlab, Bangladesh, extended a family planning and maternal and child health program to half the villages in the district in 1977, and recorded fertility in the program villages was 15–16 percent lower than in the control villages for two decades. Households in the program villages realized health and productivity gains that were concentrated among women, survival and schooling increased among children, and after 19 years household physical assets were 25 percent greater per adult than in the control villages. These large gains in the wake of the program-induced demographic transition suggest reasons for designing new labor market and microcredit policies to help women during the demographic transition invest in productive skills; shift their time more efficiently from child care to home production, self-employment, and wage labor; and invest more in the human capital of their children.
format Journal Article
author Schultz, T. Paul
author_facet Schultz, T. Paul
author_sort Schultz, T. Paul
title The Gender and Intergenerational Consequences of the Demographic Dividend
title_short The Gender and Intergenerational Consequences of the Demographic Dividend
title_full The Gender and Intergenerational Consequences of the Demographic Dividend
title_fullStr The Gender and Intergenerational Consequences of the Demographic Dividend
title_full_unstemmed The Gender and Intergenerational Consequences of the Demographic Dividend
title_sort gender and intergenerational consequences of the demographic dividend
publisher World Bank
publishDate 2012
url http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4509
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