Asadul Islam

Child Labor and Schooling Responses to Access to Microcredit in Rural Bangladesh

Microcredit has been shown to be effective in reducing poverty in many developing countries. However, less is known about its effect on human capital formation. In this paper, we develop a model examining the relation between microcredit and child labour. We then empirically examine the impact of access to microcredit on children’s education and child labour using a new and large data set from rural Bangladesh. We address the selection bias using the instrumental variable method where the instrument relies on an exogenous variation in treatment intensity among households in different villages. The results show that household participation in a microcredit program may increase child labour and reduce school enrolment. The adverse effects are more pronounced for girls than boys. Younger children are more adversely affected than their older siblings and the children of poorer and less educated households are affected most adversely. Our findings remain robust to different specifications and methods, and when corrected for various sources of selection bias.

Medium- and Long-Term Participation in Microcredit: An Evaluation Using a New Panel Dataset from Bangladesh

The objective of this paper is to estimate the impacts of medium- and long-term participation in microcredit programs. It utilises a new and large panel dataset collected from treatment and control households from 1997 to 2005. The data enables us to identify continuing participants in the program as well as newcomers and leavers. We employ different estimation strategies including triple-difference and propensity score matching methods to control for selection bias. The impact estimates indicate that the benefits from microcredit vary more than proportionately with the duration of participation in a program. Larger benefits are realized from longer-term participation, and that the benefits continue to accrue beyond departure from the program. The findings indicate the need to observe longer periods of participation to provide a reliable basis for assessing the effectiveness of microcredit lending.

IMMIGRATION UNEMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP: THE EVIDENCE FROM CANADA*

This paper examines the relationship between unemployment and immigration in Canada. The bi-directional causality test finds no evidence of a significant effect of Canadian immigration on unemployment. Cointegration tests indicate that there is no observed increase in aggregate unemployment due to immigration in the long run. The results from the causality test based on the vector error correction model confirm that, in the short run, past unemployment does cause (less) immigration but not vice versa. There is also a long-run positive relationship among per-capita GDP, immigration rate and real wages. The results indicate that, in the short-run, more immigration is possibly associated with attractive Canadian immigration policies, and in the long-run, as the labour market adjusts, Canadian-born workers are likely to benefit from increased migration.

Age at Migration, Language Proficiency, and Socioeconomic Outcomes: Evidence From Australia

This study estimates the causal effects of language proficiency on the economic and social integration of Australian immigrants. Identifying the effects of languages on socioeconomic outcomes is inherently difficult owing to the endogeneity of language skills. Using the phenomenon that younger children learn languages more easily than older children, we construct an instrumental variable for language proficiency. To achieve this, we consider the age at arrival of immigrants who came as children from Anglophone and non-Anglophone countries. We find a significant positive effect of English proficiency on wages and promotions among adults who immigrated to Australia as children. Higher levels of English proficiency are associated with increased risk-taking, more smoking, and more exercise for men, but have considerable health benefits for women. English language proficiency has a significant influence on partner choice and a number of social outcomes, as well as on children’s outcomes, including their levels of academic achievement. The results are robust to alternative specifications, including accounting for between-sibling differences and alternative measures of English skills.

The Economic Returns to Good Looks and Risky Sex in the Bangladesh Commercial Sex Market

Abstract This study examines the economic returns to beauty and unprotected sex in the commercial sex market in Bangladesh. The results show that there is a beauty premium for commercial sex work, but it is within the bounds of the economic returns to beauty for women in occupations that do not involve sex work. We find that there is an earnings premium for sex workers who sell unprotected sex and that more attractive sex workers charge a higher premium for unprotected sex. This result is consistent with more attractive people being better placed to bargain with others and with male clients being more likely to overvalue the returns to immediate sexual gratification and to engage in risk taking activities in the presence of attractive sex workers. The results are robust to alternative empirical specifications.

Education, Marriage, and Fertility: Long-Term Evidence from a Female Stipend Program in Bangladesh

In 1994, Bangladesh introduced the Female Secondary School Stipend Program that made secondary education free for rural girls. This paper examines the long-term effects of the stipend program on education, marriage, fertility, and labor market outcomes of women. We find that the stipend increased years of education for eligible girls by 14%–25%. These girls were more likely to get married later and have fewer children. They also had more autonomy in making decisions about household purchases, health care, and visiting relatives. They were more likely to work in the formal sector than the agricultural or informal sector. Eligible women were likely to marry more educated husbands who had better occupations and were closer in age to their own. Their children’s health outcomes also improved. These results imply that school-based stipend programs can increase female empowerment through positive effects on schooling and marriage market outcomes over the long term.

Microcredit Programme Participation and Household Food Security in Rural Bangladesh

We use a large household level panel dataset collected from rural households in Bangladesh to examine the effects of microcredit program participation on household food security. We examine how microcredit affects different measures of food security; namely, household calorie consumption, dietary diversity indicators and anthropometric status of women of reproductive age (15-49 years) and children under the age of five. We find that microcredit program participation increases calorie consumption both at the intensive and extensive margins, but does not improve dietary diversity and only has mixed effects on the anthropometric measures. We also find that the effect of participation on food security may be non-linear in which participation initially has either no effect on food security or may actually worsen it, before improving it in the long run. Our results may explain why short-term evaluation of microcredit might not show any positive effects.

Do Immigrants Save Less than Natives? Immigrant and Native Saving Behaviour in Australia

The observed wealth differential in favour of native households seems to contradict the analytical presumption of a saving differential in favour of immigrant households. This article seeks to explain the observed differences in wealth through an examination of the respective saving behaviour of immigrants and natives. Quantile regression and semiparametric decomposition methods are used to identify the saving differential and to isolate the factors that contribute to it. The basic finding is that household income is the key to the differential saving pattern. Moreover, decomposition analysis suggests that immigrants have a tendency to save more than natives when compared with Australian-born households with similar characteristics. We also find evidence of heterogeneity in immigrant saving behaviour depending on household types and countries of origin.

The Effect of Informal Networks on Corruption in Education: Evidence from the Household Survey Data in Bangladesh

Abstract Using the 2007 household survey data collected by Transparency International Bangladesh, we examine corruption in the education sector in Bangladesh. Our main findings are (i) the incidence of corruption and the amount of bribe increase with the level of red tape, (ii) poorer households, households with a less educated household head, and households with girls studying in school are more likely to be victims of corruption, (iii) households with higher social status are more likely to use informal networks to bypass the red tape or pay less amount of a bribe and, as a result, (iv) corruption is likely to be regressive.

Do Fertility Control Policies Affect Health in Old Age? Evidence from China's One‐Child Experiment

How do fertility control policies contribute to the welfare of women, and their husbands, particularly as they get older? We consider whether the reduction in fertility resulting from population control policies has had any effect on the health of elderly parents in China. In particular, we examine the influence of this fertility decline, experienced due to Chinas one-child policy, on several measures of the health of parents in middle and old age. Overall, our results suggest that having fewer children has a positive effect on self-reported parental health but generally no effect on other measures of health. The results also suggest that upstream financial transfers have a positive effect on several measures of parental health.