Eliane El Badaoui (University of Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense) on "Fostering, Children's Time Use and Schooling in Niger: A Test of the Cinderella Effect"

Speaker:  Eliane El Badaoui - University of Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense
  Wednesday, October 12, 2016 at 12:30 PM polo Santa Marta, Via Cantarane 24, Room 1.59
This paper deals with the time allocation of fostered-in children compared to their biological counterparts in Niger. The children’s school attendance and their time allocated to market work and domestic work are analysed simultaneously allowing for correlations among the error terms. The focus is on the impact of fostering-in, a common institution in West Africa. Fostering-in decision is treated as endogenous and estimates are performed on different sub-samples to test for heterogeneity in household composition. The results suggest that there is no significant difference between fostered-in and biological boys in the school outcome while the picture is totally different for girls who have a lower probability to attend school when fostered. Fostered-in children are required to do more hours of market labour and domestic labour. While fostered boys perform more domestic chores than their biological siblings, fostering status has no impact on girls’ time allocated to domestic tasks. The correlations among error terms in the three different equations are significant and confirm that neglecting simultaneously of the three decisions would lead to inefficient estimates. For the subsample of girls, the endogeneity of fostering seems only related to market hours. Our results hold to different sample selections, in particular to the exclusion of children living in polygamous or in non-nuclear families.
 

Programme Director
Marcella Veronesi

External reference
Publication date
March 2, 2016

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