Department of Economics, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.
Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
Am Econ Rev. 2017 Sep;107(9):2600-29.
Child stunting in India exceeds that in poorer regions like sub-Saharan Africa. Data on over 168,000 children show that, relative to Africa, India's height disadvantage increases sharply with birth order. We posit that India’s steep birth order gradient is due to favoritism toward eldest sons, which affects parents' fertility decisions and resource allocation across children. We show that, within India, the gradient is steeper for high-son-preference regions and religions. The gradient also varies with sibling gender as predicted. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that India's steeper birth order gradient can explain over one-half of the India-Africa gap in average child height.
印度的儿童发育迟缓问题比撒哈拉以南非洲等较贫困地区更为严重。对超过 168000 名儿童的数据进行分析后表明，与非洲相比，印度的身高劣势随出生顺序急剧增加。我们推测，印度陡峭的出生顺序梯度是由于偏爱长子所致，这会影响父母的生育决策以及对子女的资源分配。我们发现，在印度内部，高儿子偏好地区和宗教的梯度更为陡峭。梯度也如预测的那样随兄弟姐妹的性别而变化。根据粗略计算，印度陡峭的出生顺序梯度可以解释印度与非洲儿童平均身高差距的一半以上。
