We examine patterns of health seeking behavior prior to death among 1282 individuals who lived in the Umkhanyakude District of Northern KwaZulu-Natal. Information on the health care choices of these individuals, who died between January 2003 and July 2004, was gathered after their deaths from...

Globally, men and women face markedly different risks of obesity. In all but of handful of (primarily Western European) countries, obesity is more prevalent among women than men. In this paper, we examine several potential explanations for this phenomenon. We analyze differences between men and...

Wealthier people live longer and experience less morbidity than do poorer people, in both developed and developing countries. While the association between income and health status has been well documented, the mechanisms leading to this correlation are unclear. In this paper, we use data...

The South African old-age social pension has been much studied by both researchers and policy makers, in part for the larger lessons that might be learned about behavioral responses to cash transfers in developing countries. In this paper, we quantify the labor supply responses of prime-aged...

In many parts of the developing world, rural areas exhibit high rates of unemployment and underemployment. Understanding what prevents people from migrating to find better jobs is central to the development process. In this paper, we examine whether binding credit constraints and childcare...

We analyze longitudinal data from a demographic surveillance area (DSA) in KwaZulu-Natal, to examine the impact of parental death on children’s outcomes. We find significant differences in the impact of mothers’ and fathers’ deaths. The loss of a child’s mother is a strong predictor of...

An Apartheid-driven spatial mismatch between workers and jobs leads to high job search costs for people living in rural areas of South Africa—costs that many young people cannot pay. In this paper, we examine whether the arrival of a social grant – specifically a generous state old age...

Using a large longitudinal dataset, we quantify the impact of adult deaths on household economic wellbeing. The timing of lower socioeconomic status observed for households in which members die of AIDS suggests that the socioeconomic gradient in AIDS mortality is being driven primarily by poor...

We use panel data collected in metropolitan Cape Town to document the role played by aging parents in caring for the children of children who die. In addition, we quantify the probabilities that older adults and the older adults' children provide financial support to orphaned grandchildren. We...