Strategic Fertility Behaviour, Early Childhood Human Capital Investments and Gender Roles in Albania

55 Pages Posted: 17 Dec 2018

See all articles by Louise Grogan

Louise Grogan

University of Guelph - Department of Economics; IZA Institute of Labor Economics; Global Labor Organization (GLO); University of Central Asia (UCA)

Abstract

Preferences for male children in Albania are shown to have persisted through nearly half a century of communist rule, and twenty five years of economic transition. Substantial contemporary birth masculinisation is concentrated amongst higher order births. Fertility falls strongly when a firstborn child is male. Still, there is only mixed evidence that parents invest more in young boys than girls, or that women's status increases with the birth of a son. Earlier male births reduce women's midlife employment but do not appear to affect say in household resource allocation. Women in their forties who bore sons at younger ages are considerably more accepting of spousal violence.

Keywords: sex information technology, patrilocality, son preference, 1918 Albanian census, demographic and health surveys (DHS), old-age security, resource allocation, communism, household violence

JEL Classification: O12, I31, J7

Suggested Citation

Grogan, Louise A., Strategic Fertility Behaviour, Early Childhood Human Capital Investments and Gender Roles in Albania. IZA Discussion Paper No. 11937, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3301679 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3301679

Louise A. Grogan (Contact Author)

University of Guelph - Department of Economics ( email )

50 Stone Road East
Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1
Canada

IZA Institute of Labor Economics ( email )

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Global Labor Organization (GLO) ( email )

Collogne
Germany

HOME PAGE: http://glabor.org

University of Central Asia (UCA) ( email )

138 Toktogul Street
Bishkek, 720001
Kyrgyzstan

HOME PAGE: http://www.ucentralasia.org

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