Water Quality, Brawn, and Education : The Rural Drinking Water Program in China

Xu, Lixin Colin ; Zhang, Jing

World Bank Group, Washington, DC

关键词: AGED;    AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION;    AVAILABILITY OF WATER;    CENTRAL GOVERNMENT;    CHANNEL;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7054
RP-ID  :  WPS7054

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Although previous research hasdemonstrated the health benefits of water treatmentprograms, relatively little is known about the effect ofwater treatment on education. This paper examines theeducational benefits to rural youth in China of a majordrinking water treatment program started in the 1980s,perhaps the largest of such programs in the world. Byemploying a cross-sectional data set (constructed from alongitudinal data set covering two decades) with more than4,700 individuals between 18 and 25 years old, the analysisfinds that this health program has improved theindividuals' education substantially, increasing thegrades of education completed by 1.08 years. The qualitativeresults hold when the analysis controls for localeducational policies and resources, village dummies, anddistance of villages to schools, and by instrumenting thewater treatment dummy with villages' topographicfeatures, among others. Moreover, three findings rendersupport to the brawn theory of gender division of labor:girls benefit much more from water treatment than boys inschooling attainment; youth with an older brother benefitmore than youth with an older sister; and boys gain morebody mass than girls do from having access to treated water.The program can account for the gender gap in educationalattainment in rural China in the sample period. Young peoplethat had access to treated plant water in early childhood(0-2 years of age) experienced significantly higher gains ineducation than those who were exposed to treated water afterearly childhood. The estimates suggest that this program ishighly cost-effective.