Are Women more Efficient Transmitters and, or Receivers of Literacy and Education Externalities?

1. Are Women more Efficient Transmitters and, or Receivers of Literacy and Education Externalities? Richard Palmer-Jones School of Development Studies,University of East Anglia, Workshop on Life Course, Well-being and Public Policy, 9-10/11/06

2. Mothers, children and the Inter-generational transmission of well-being • Caldwell, and UN, suggest women/mothers, translate education into child wellbeing (IMRs, Height for Age, .., fertility reduction, etc. more efficiently than males/fathers • B&F (1998) analysing proximate-illiteracy also suggest women are more efficient transmitters of literacy externalities • BNR (2001) suggest illiterate women are also more efficient recipients of literacy externalities, at least in so far as labour productivity is concerned

3. Proximate Illiteracy • B&F argue that “effective literacy” depends on the distribution of literates within the population, depending on the extent to which within household sharing of literacy benefits occurs • Kerala has greater effective literacy because it is more widely distributed among households • Also, females may be more effective transmitters • BNR suggest that the incentive to share literacy benefits with household members depends on alterations in bargaining power that may arise if benefits to household illiterates alters intra-household allocations • Greater incentives to share benefits which raise labour earnings with household members of low bargaining power (perceived resource contributions) • Disadvantages of isolated illiterates – policy?

4. BNR find significantly greater wages for proximate-illiterate females in non-farm employment than for males • Not a selection effect because similar for “unmarried” females as for all females • Gibson, 2001, and also Alderman et. al, 2003, find Child Nutritional Status benefits associated with female literacy • Community level measures of literacy

5. But • If females are more efficient education externality recipients they are often receiving it from males (table 6) • The difference between male and female education effects on child mortality are small • And not universal (negligible difference in urban areas?) • Males are more educated than females • More of them & to higher levels implying (table 1) • Educated males are less talented than females educated to the same level • Uneducated males are less talented than uneducated females • Assortative mating means educated females are married to (more) educated males (table 1) • Maybe effect of educated females is (partly) due to characteristics of male to whom they are married • Exceptions (prove the rule?) • Educated/literate females married to less educated males • educated men married to uneducated females • Consider educational differences and synergies

6. Illiterate females in non-farm labour force more likely to be male-proximate Source: authors calculations from HIES 1995/6

7. More males are more educated Notes: the cells represent the educational levels of spouses. 1.a missing educational attainment observation is interpreted as “no education”Source: authors’ calculations from HIES 2000/1 unit records.

8. soooo ………… • If effects are non-linear (monotonic increasing at declining rate) • Effect may partly be statistical illusion • And there are lots of empirical problems with the BNR, Gibson and Alderman et al. papers • Community level female literacy variables not controlled for other community variables • Why are females relatively more literate? • See “North” vs “South” India analysis later • BNR analysis selective and simplistic • Results not robust to other data sets

9. Typical data showing greater association of female than male literacy with CNS

10. Assortative mating and education

12. lnhaz = c + a1*ln(mothers_yrs_educ) + a2*ln(fathers_yrs_educ) + a3*ln(mothers*fathers_yrs_educ) Raw education values from 1 to 15 (approximately years)source: HIES and CNS 2000/1

13. Bias in interpretation of results (BNR) – proximate illiterate female wages • negative participation coefficients – i.e. proximate-illiterate females less likely to be in the labour force • coefficients of male- & female- proximate variables not different • use of age instead of years of labour market experience • Liberal households may enable greater effective participation for given age • “unmarried” females includes never and formerly married • Spurious “test” for selection • formerly married women (widows and divorcees) • Wage coefficient does not increase with marriage experience • Never married and wives also have positive wage coefficients • What characteristics does household literacy represent? • alternative explanations of literacy externality (to productivity effect) neglected • better networks of (male) literates • better bargaining skills (and power) (of self or household) • selection of more productive (illiterate) females into (male) literate household • Not controverted by spurious BNR test • curious categorisation of houshold litteracy • m- and f- proximate but no m&f-proximate cases? • synergy of proximity to both male and female literates • M&f-proximate illiterates have highest wage externalities

14. Literacy externalities - robustness, social and regional variations, and industries • Wage benefits of female prox-illit. do not carry over to child nutritional status improvements (HIES, 2000/1) • Similar results not obtained in 2000/1 HIES • Positive selection but negative wage effects for female prox-illits. • Marital and kinship practices (Indian NSS EUS data) • north” and “south” India • female participation less in “north” • Positive female wage effect only in “north” • Social groups (ST, SC, Caste, Muslim ..) • Selection into marriage to literate households • More able illiterates marry into literate households? • Wage premium due to unobserved attributes of proximate-illiterates • Wage effect observed in manufacturing sector (not construction, mining, services)

15. How does education work? • Search for mechanisms of transmission of education to child well-being • Content – health and nutrition content • Better able to diagnose and treat – learn treatments outside school • Better able to seek assistance from modern sources – self confidence • Different cultural values in literate households • Depends on the cultures of the literate and what is taught in schools, in other educational establishments, and at home