How much of the increase in sex ratio (male to female) at birth since the early 1980s in China is attributed to increased prenatal sex selection? This question is addressed by exploiting the differential introduction of diagnostic ultrasound in the country during the 1980s, which significantly reduced the cost of prenatal sex selection. We…

This paper investigates whether boys receive preferential prenatal treatment in a setting where son preference is present. Using micro health data from India, we highlight sex-selective prenatal investments as a new channel via which parents practice discriminatory behavior. We find that mothers visit antenatal clinics and receive tetanus…

We examine whether women's rising labor force participation led to increased intergenerational transmission of occupation from fathers to daughters. We develop a model where fathers invest in human capital that is specific to their own occupations. Our model generates an empirical test where we compare the trends in the probabilities that women…

Based on the prevalent son preference in China, this paper proposes a new measure of relative bargaining power within the household. Using data from China Health and Nutrition Survey, we show that a woman with a first-born son has a 3.9 percentage points' greater role in household decision-making than a woman with a first-born daughter. Having a…

This paper studies parental investment in education and intergenerational earnings mobility for father-son pairs with native- and foreign-born fathers. We illustrate within a simple model that for immigrants, investment in their children is related to their return migration probability. In our empirical analysis, we include a measure for return…

The Panel Study on Income Dynamics is used to study the trends in the elasticity of son's income in relation to parental income. The study reveals a nonlinear trend that increased for sons born between 1949 and 1953 and then declined for sons born after 1953. The direction of this linear trend is dependent on the time period and could be upward,…