The Decision to Invest in Child Quality over Quantity : Household Size and Household Investment in Education in Vietnam

Dang, Hai-Anh ; Rogers, F. Halsey

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ABORTION;    ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE;    ACCESS TO FAMILY PLANNING;    ACHIEVEMENT;    ADOLESCENT FERTILITY;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-6487
RP-ID  :  WPS6487

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

During Vietnam's two decades ofrapid economic growth, its fertility rate has fallen sharplyat the same time that its educational attainment has risenrapidly -- macro trends that are consistent with thehypothesis of a quantity-quality tradeoff in child-rearing.This paper investigates whether the micro-level evidencesupports the hypothesis that Vietnamese parents are in factmaking a tradeoff between quantity and quality of children.The paper presents new measures of household investment inprivate tutoring, together with traditional measures ofhousehold investments in education. It analyzes data fromthe Vietnam Household Living Standards Surveys andinstruments for family size using the distance to thenearest family planning center. The estimation results showthat families do indeed invest less in the education ofschool-age children who have larger numbers of siblings.This effect holds for several indicators of educationalinvestment -- including general education expenditure andvarious measures of private tutoring investment -- and isrobust to various definitions of family size and modelspecifications that control for community characteristics aswell as the distance to the city center. Finally, theresults suggest that tutoring may be a better measure ofquality-oriented household investments in education thantraditional measures like enrollment, which are arguablyless nuanced and household-driven.