Elderly Coresidence and Son Preference : Can Pension Reforms Solve the ‘Missing Women’ Problem?
Recent scholarship has documented an alarming increase in the sex ratio at birth in parts of East Asia, South Asia and the South Caucuses. I argue that parents engage in sex selection because of patrilocal norms that dictate elderly coresidence between parents and sons, and limited old age pensions in these countries. I present several empirical facts supporting this claim. First, I demonstrate that sex ratios and coresidence rates are positively correlated when looking across countries, within countries across districts, and within districts across ethnic groups. Second, I find that sex ratios are only elevated among those without a son. Third, I examine a series of case studies in which countries had large policy changes in their generosity of elderly support. I find in each case study that sex ratios decline in response to expansions in the availability of pensions but increase when pensions become less reliable
Year of publication: |
2022
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Authors: | Ebenstein, Avraham |
Publisher: |
[S.l.] : SSRN |
Saved in:
freely available
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