The contribution of female health to economic development

David Bloom, Michael Kuhn and Klaus Prettner

No 11-2016, Hohenheim Discussion Papers in Business, Economics and Social Sciences from University of Hohenheim, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences

Abstract: We analyze the economic consequences for less developed countries of investing in female health. We do this through developing and calibrating a novel micro-founded dynamic general equilibrium model in which parents trade off the number of children against investments in their education and in which we allow for health-related gender differences in productivity. We show that better female health speeds up the demographic transition and thereby the take-off toward sustained economic growth. By contrast, male health improvements delay the transition and take-off because ceteris paribus they raise fertility. Investing in female health is therefore a potent lever for promoting development.

Keywords: economic development; educational transition; female health; fertility transition; quality-quantity trade-off (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I15 I25 J13 J16 O11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-dev, nep-gro, nep-hea and nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The contribution of female health to economic development (2020)
Working Paper: The contribution of female health to economic development (2016)
Working Paper: The Contribution of Female Health to Economic Development (2015)
Working Paper: The Contribution of Female Health to Economic Development (2015)
Working Paper: The contribution of female health to economic development (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:hohdps:112016

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