Mothers Care More, but Fathers Decide: Educating Parents about Child Health in Uganda
Martina Björkman Nyqvist, Seema Jayachandran
American Economic Review · 2017 · Volume 107 · Issue 5
Abstract
Research on intrahousehold decision-making generally finds that fathers have more bargaining power than mothers, but mothers put more weight on children's well-being. This suggests a tradeoff when targeting policies to improve child health: fathers have more power to change household behavior in ways that improve child health, but mothers might have a stronger desire to do so. This paper compares health classes in Uganda that enrolled either mothers or fathers. We find that educating mothers leads to greater adoption of health-promoting behaviors by the household. In addition, educating one parent leads to positive spillovers on the other spouse's health behaviors.
Keywords
National Government Expenditures and Health, Analysis of Health Care Markets, Health and Inequality, Health: Government Policy, Regulation, Public Health, Marriage, Marital Dissolution, Family Structure, Domestic Abuse, Fertility, Family Planning, Child Care, Children, Youth, Economic Development: Human Resources, Human Development, Income Distribution, Migration
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