poor economics by abhijit v banerjee and esther duflo

Women who were given unaccompanied access to family planning services reported fewer unwanted pregnancies than those who accessed those same services with their husbands, claim the authors. According to Duflo and Banerjee, this encourages girls to engage in risky sexual behavior even before they’ve finished school, which leads to early pregnancies.Įvidence suggests that when empowered and allowed to decide for themselves, poor women prefer to have fewer children than when their decision is influenced by their husbands. They thus frequently see motherhood as the only way to achieve economic security: After all, the father may support them. Specifically, poor girls are often less educated than boys and have fewer employment opportunities. Poor women are often disempowered, which renders them less able to make independent decisions about their fertility. They found that two factors affect these decisions: Disempowered Women Can’t Make Independent Decisions Given these facts, Duflo and Banerjee wanted to determine how the poor make decisions about their fertility. Statistics like this suggest that enabling girls to stay in school is a powerful way to reduce poverty.) Also, for every year of secondary education a girl completes, her income grows by 15 to 25%. Experts find that for every year a girl in a developing nation is in school, her first pregnancy is delayed by six to 10 months. (Shortform note: Girls who receive more education are more likely to delay pregnancy and earn a higher income later in life. Mothers with less education and poorer health in turn have a harder time escaping poverty. If they have children before they finish school, mothers tend to get less education during their lifetimes, and if they have more children than they can afford, mothers sacrifice their own nutritional and health needs to ensure those children are cared for. How Do Poor Parents Plan Their Family Size?īased on their research, Duflo and Banerjee found that poor mothers often suffer disadvantages if they have children too early in life or if they have more children than they can afford.

Poor economics by abhijit v banerjee and esther duflo