Cornell University

Development Economics Workshop: Lilac Zihui Zhao

Wednesday, October 25, 2023 1:25pm to 2:40pm

Cornell University Mann Library, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA

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Lilac Zihui Zhao (Cornell)

Do Compulsory Schooling Laws Skew the Sex Ratio? Traditional Institutions, Education Intervention and Gender Inequity

Abstract: To fully anticipate the consequences of government policies, it is crucial to understand the existing environment in which they are implemented, including traditional institutions. My paper offers a fresh perspective on the effects of compulsory schooling when it interacts with patrilocality and proposes a novel mechanism for the skewed sex ratio. Specifically, to guide empirical analysis, I introduce a two-sector occupation choice model where parents make optimal decisions concerning sex selection, investment in children's education and calorie intake, as well as their occupational choices. This model is contextualized in a patrilocal society where parents derive fewer financial benefits from daughters when the returns to education are sharecropped by her in-laws, leading them to invest less in their education. The introduction of the CSL puts a minimum educational investment threshold and limits household choice sets. This leads to a larger distortion in parents' choices for their daughters, producing a range of gender-relevant consequences as posited by my model. I then leverage China's 1986 CSL and 2008 Free CSL as quasi-experiments to empirically test all model predictions. I show that, on the one hand, the CSL reduces the gender gap in basic education and calorie intake, reduces the fertility rate, and facilitates the transition to non-agricultural sectors, on the other hand, it exacerbates the sex ratio against females. However, the lower price of education induced by the 2008 Free CSL could partially mitigate the sex ratio.