In examining the impact of each parent’s human capital on children’s achievements, only recently has the literature looked into the issue of gender bias—whether female and male children are differently affected by father’s and mother’s schooling, especially in the context of the joint determination of child labor and schooling (Emerson and Souza, 2007). Such differential impacts could be due to simple differences in parental preferences or more subtle effects in the human capital production function of children. In addition, a slightly different strand of studies in development economics has examined the role of birth order on various outcomes of children like health, schooling and, recently, child labor (Edmonds, 2005; Emerson and Souza, 2008).
Conspicuous by its absence in the latest literature, especially with respect to child labor, is a simultaneous treatment of gender bias and birth order effects. To be exact, gender bias is analyzed absent birth order effects and, conversely, studies on birth order effects abstract from analysis of gender bias. It is conceivable, however, that these two phenomena interact in determining children’s outcomes even though the exact nature of the interaction is largely an empirical question. In this paper, we undertake a simultaneous analysis of gender bias and birth order effects on the schooling and work status of children in poor households. Specifically, we test two related hypotheses: (a) Birth order is a more relevant factor in determining the level of investment on children than gender bias in poor households. That is, controlling for birth order effects, male and female children are likely to be (statistically) equivalently impacted by father’s and mother’s schooling; (b) If there is to be a statistically detectable gender bias, then it is likely to show only on later-born children. The argument here is that for earlier-born children birth order likely dilutes (and dominates) parental preferences/bias, such that any remaining gender bias is likely to be manifested only on later-born children.
To test the hypotheses we use data from the 1999/2000 Ethiopia National Labor Force Survey (LFS), the first comprehensive national labor force survey in the country. In addition to collecting extensive information on demographics, socio-economic status, employment and unemployment characteristics, and general economic activity of sampled households, crucially the survey contains a section exclusively focused on the schooling and market and non-market activities of 5-14 year-olds residing in a base sample of over 81000 households (CSA, 2005a and b).