Nguyen, Giang
Description
This thesis contains three essays on economic development in
Southeast Asia. The broad objective of the thesis is to study
different aspects of economic development in the region. The
first essay examines the determinants of the consumption gap
between migrant and urban households in Vietnam, paying
particular attention to the role of the household registration
(ho khau) system in shaping consumption of migrant households.
Our findings indicate: (1) migrant...[Show more] households exhibit
significantly lower consumption levels than comparable urban
households and the observed gap is mainly driven by differences
in non-food consumption; (2) the restrictions imposed by the ho
khau system contribute significantly to the gap; (3) remittances
of migrant households to family members in rural regions are
responsible for a considerable part of the gap; and (4) the
consumption gap declines with the duration of residence of
migrant households in their destination cities. The second essay
examines the effect of fertility on women's labor market outcomes
in Indonesia using an instrumental variable approach. Parental
preferences for a mixed sibling-sex composition are used to
construct an instrumental variable to identify the causal effect
of fertility on a range of outcome variables, including labor
force participation, full-time employment, employment in the
formal sector and occupational choices. Our findings indicate
that childbearing of women whose fertility was affected by the
sex composition of their offspring reduces labor force
participation, formal employment and employment in occupations
that are physically demanding and require a high level of
commitment. The effect is stronger for women aged 21-35 years and
ambiguous for women aged 36-49 years. The third essay
investigates fertility differentials between rural and urban
areas in Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines. A decomposition
analysis based on both linear and count data models shows: (1)
differences in individual and family characteristics between
rural and urban areas have the largest contribution to the gap,
although the contribution varies across countries; (2)
differences in women's educational attainment have the strongest
effect in Indonesia and Cambodia, while the wealth effect is
largest in the Philippines; (3) husband's education differentials
also contribute to a significant part of the gap; and (4) women's
education appears to be more important for young women in
reducing the gap than for older women, while the contribution of
differences in the use of contraceptives is only significant for
young women.
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