Sweet Child of Mine: Parental Income, Child Health and Inequality

Abstract How to allocate limited resources among children is a crucial household decision, especially in developing countries where it can have strong implications for children and family survival. We provide the first large-scale study linking variations in parental income in the early life of children to subsequent child health and parental investments across siblings in developing countries, using data from multiple waves of the Demographic and Health Surveys spanning fifty-four countries. Variations in the world prices of locally suitable crops are used as measures of local income. We find that children born in periods of higher income receive better health investments and display persistently higher levels of health than their siblings. Children whose siblings were born during favourable income periods receive less investment and exhibit worse health. These findings are consistent with a model of sibling rivalry where parents invest in the child with the highest returns and complementarities in investment across periods. We also provide evidence that other investments (education, parental time use and child labour) react to sibling rivalry. Our results suggest that income shocks can enlarge disparities within households.