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Like Father, like Son; Like Mother, like Daughter: Parental Resources and Child Height
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1994
Year
Family MedicineParental CareFamily InvolvementDevelopment EconomicsEducationSocial SciencesDevelopmental PsychologyChild HeightParental ResourcesFamily InteractionHuman DevelopmentPovertyChild PsychologyChild Well-beingEconomicsHousehold LaborChild DevelopmentSociologyParentingDevelopmental ScienceFamily PsychologyChild NutritionLow Income Developing CountryGeneral Child HealthResource AllocationDemography
The study examined whether gender differences exist in how households allocate resources to child health, using child height as a proxy for general child health and nutritional status. The authors used household survey data from the United States, Brazil, and Ghana that recorded child anthropometry and socioeconomic characteristics. Across all three countries, mothers directed more resources toward daughters while fathers favored sons; maternal education had a stronger effect on daughters, whereas paternal education benefited sons more, with country‑specific patterns such as Brazilian women’s non‑labor income improving daughters’ height and Ghanaian women whose education exceeded their husbands’ having a larger impact on daughters, indicating that gendered resource allocation reflects both technological differences in child‑rearing and parental preference.
Through use of child height as a proxy for general child health and nutritional status the hypothesis that there are gender differences in the allocation of household resources to child health was examined. Data were derived from household surveys conducted in the US Brazil and Ghana that included information on both child anthropometry and family socioeconomic attributes. In all three countries mothers were found to allocate more resources to daughters while fathers channelled resources toward sons. Maternal education was found to have a larger effect on the height of daughters than sons while sons benefit more than daughters as paternal education increases. In Brazil womens non-labor income was used to improve the health of daughters but not sons. In Ghana the education of a woman whose educational attainment surpasses that of her husband had a larger impact on the height of her daughter than that of her son. If relative education of parents and non-labor income are indicators of power in household allocation decisions these findings suggest that gender differentials in resource allocation reflect both technological differences in child rearing and gender-based differences in parental preferences.