There is a large body of economic literature that documents the existence of son
preference and its negative impact on girls’ accumulation of human capital. Some
studies have found that gender preference is exacerbated when fertility declines.
Many studies have also looked at the impact of availability of family planning
on fertility. My work contributes to this literature by linking these together and
measuring the impact of fertility control policies on gender preference at birth.
Also, it presents the first quantitative study of gender preference at birth in Iran.
In the first essay, I provide a short history of fertility policies and population
transition in Iran. In the second essay, I look at the government provided family
planning program and its impact on the fertility decline in rural Iran. I estimate
the association between a woman’s age of exposure to a clinic and her total number
of children. I find that exposure to a health clinic at her most fertile ages (20-35)
is associated with a 20% reduction in total number of children born to a woman,
a significant drop (equivalent to one child).
In the third essay, I examine the extent of gender preference at birth in Iran
and its impact on fertility decisions, using gender composition of first two children
as a random experiment. I find that parents with a first born daughter will, on
average, have more children; daughters are followed more quickly with another
birth; and among all gender compositions, mothers with two daughters are most
likely to continue child bearing.
I exploit the quasi-experimental expansion of rural health clinics providing
family planning services in rural Iran. Using a difference in difference method,
(with village fixed effects), I estimate the impact of access to family planning
on gender biased fertility decisions. Availability of family planning is associated
with a 12-17% reduction in probability of subsequent birth for mothers with two
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children. However, there is no difference in this probability based on gender
composition of children. I find that access to family planning does not exacerbate
son preference expressed through fertility in rural Iran.