The ability of households to diversify their income sources is strongly related to their capacity to cope in times of pressure, such as during economic crises. This is particularly so among the poor, who often do not have adequate resources on which to draw when under such pressures. Households...

In sub-Saharan Africa, 60 % of child deaths are preventable by investments in child health as simple as immunizations, bed nets, or water purification. This article investigates how a household’s decisions regarding such investments are affected by the size and gender composition of a...

Service was one of the main characteristics of the European Marriage Pattern in pre-industrial western Europe. During this stage of the life cycle adolescents could acquire the material assets and skills that were required to marry and start an independent household. Whilst in service, servants...

Research on child custody primarily focuses on the well-being of children following divorce. We extend this literature by examining how the prospect of joint child custody affects marriage-specific investment in children’s private-school education. Variation in the timing of joint-custody...

We analyze differences by gender in the time dedicated to total work (paid and unpaid) by families in Latin America, with particular attention to the effect of social norms. To this end, we use survey data on time use in Mexico (2009), Peru (2010), Ecuador (2012) and Colombia (2012), to estimate...

The aim of this paper is to determine the significant variables in the fertility patterns of the Roma population in Spain. Family and home production are two of the idiosyncratic features of this minority group, and our theoretical and empirical analyses take account of both, as well as other...

Traditionally we have studied the problem of child labor as the counterpart of school attendance. However, most studies have ignored the potential importance of household work performed by children at home. Given that children from certain age may perform these activities, and because child...

Building on anthropological evidence, we develop a model of intra-household decision making on fertility and child survival within the framework of the collective household model. We carry out a test of the implications of this framework with data from Demographic and Health Surveys in rural...

Recently there has been much public discussion about children spending long afternoons alone at home. It has been claimed that spending a lot of time alone makes children vulnerable to many kinds of risk behaviour, such as smoking, use of alcohol and drugs, depression and poor school...

Leaving the nest in Southern Europe, and to a lesser extend in other countries, is a decision taken simultaneously by two young adults who form a new household. However, nothing is known about the e¤ect of partnership status on children�s eman- cipation since conventional datasets do not...