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Burgess & Zhuang (2002) Intra-household Allocation
w
i
is the left hand side variable.
Empirical Evidence
Deaton (1997): direct comparison by gender of nutrition, health and edu-
cation reveals gender biases. For example, excess female mortality amongst
girls in China, Bangladesh and India. Further, enrolment and literacy tend
to be higher for boys rather than girls (in cohorts of the same age) in many
parts of the developing word.
Mechanisms that underlie these differences are not fully understood. One
suggestion , for example, is that excess female mortality is due to female
children receiving less medical attention when they are sick. Burgess and
Zhuang (2001) use household expenditure to try and pry open this black
box for China.
Summary of Results
Burgess and Zhuang (2001) study in China – the following three key sets
of gender bias results emerge:
(i) there is no evidence of discrimination in the allocation of food and calo-
ries. Deaton (1997) also finds mixed results for food in Maharashtra (In-
dia). Parents may not change their food buying or production decisions if