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Female Empowerment and Early Childhood Health Investments: The Long-Term Effect of Matrilineal Kinship in Sub-Saharan Africa

Nordqvist, Eric LU (2020) NEKP01 20201
Department of Economics
Abstract
How we choose to invest in the future generations is becoming increasingly imperative as researchers learn more about the long-term consequences of early childhood. The early-life literature suggests that empowered mothers invest more into their children and that matrilineal females are more empowered than patrilineal counterparts. To further understand the role of female empowerment on early childhood investments, this paper combines these two insights and investigates the effects of ancestral matrilineal kinship organizations on contemporaneous early childhood health investments. In this pursuit, I bring the growing anthropological methodology into the health economics literature. I utilize Murdock’s ethnographic atlas together with... (More)
How we choose to invest in the future generations is becoming increasingly imperative as researchers learn more about the long-term consequences of early childhood. The early-life literature suggests that empowered mothers invest more into their children and that matrilineal females are more empowered than patrilineal counterparts. To further understand the role of female empowerment on early childhood investments, this paper combines these two insights and investigates the effects of ancestral matrilineal kinship organizations on contemporaneous early childhood health investments. In this pursuit, I bring the growing anthropological methodology into the health economics literature. I utilize Murdock’s ethnographic atlas together with individual level cross-section survey data for 166,982 births in 26 sub-Saharan countries and find evidence that contemporaneous mothers with matrilineal ancestry invest more in their children’s health than patrilineal counterparts. I do not, however, find support that this is due to female empowerment, or that matrilineal mothers are more empowered by their ancestry. Moreover, I conclude that the mothers’ partners are more important than theory suggests, and that local geographical or demographic factors need to be controlled for in order to establish causality. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Nordqvist, Eric LU
supervisor
organization
course
NEKP01 20201
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
Matrilineality, cultural persistence, female empowerment, child health investments.
language
English
id
9015609
date added to LUP
2020-08-29 11:09:23
date last changed
2020-08-29 11:09:23
@misc{9015609,
  abstract     = {{How we choose to invest in the future generations is becoming increasingly imperative as researchers learn more about the long-term consequences of early childhood. The early-life literature suggests that empowered mothers invest more into their children and that matrilineal females are more empowered than patrilineal counterparts. To further understand the role of female empowerment on early childhood investments, this paper combines these two insights and investigates the effects of ancestral matrilineal kinship organizations on contemporaneous early childhood health investments. In this pursuit, I bring the growing anthropological methodology into the health economics literature. I utilize Murdock’s ethnographic atlas together with individual level cross-section survey data for 166,982 births in 26 sub-Saharan countries and find evidence that contemporaneous mothers with matrilineal ancestry invest more in their children’s health than patrilineal counterparts. I do not, however, find support that this is due to female empowerment, or that matrilineal mothers are more empowered by their ancestry. Moreover, I conclude that the mothers’ partners are more important than theory suggests, and that local geographical or demographic factors need to be controlled for in order to establish causality.}},
  author       = {{Nordqvist, Eric}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Female Empowerment and Early Childhood Health Investments: The Long-Term Effect of Matrilineal Kinship in Sub-Saharan Africa}},
  year         = {{2020}},
}