Resumen de Three empirical essays on fecundity, household overcrowding and its effects. The case of ecuador
An excessive number of people living under the same roof is a social problem. Indeed, household overcrowding can be consider as a socioeconomic indicator because people who cannot afford the price of private space are more likely to live in crowded conditions.
The main objective of this thesis is to contribute to the literature with a complete and updated understanding of the household overcrowding phenomenon, covering the topic all the way starting in its causes (chapters 2 and 3) to its consequences (chapter 4).
This dissertation is organized in three chapters beyond this introduction and final conclusions. All of them use Ecuadorian cross section data. In the case of chapter 2 and chapter 4, data come from Ecuadorian Living Condition Surveys of 2006 and 2014; meanwhile, the Census of Population and Dwellings of 2010 is used for the empirical analysis in chapter 3.
In the chapter 2, we start by analyzing fecundity of women considering socio-economic characteristics. Indeed, high levels of fecundity may be considered the beginning of the household overcrowding problem. Clearly, fecundity and the size of the household are almost the same thing, if we consider fecundity at a household level. In the analytical part of the second chapter, we have analyzed the vast economic literature devoted to the study of fecundity, from which several testable hypotheses that relate it to household income, education level of the mother and her labor market participation have been derived. The chapter provides empirical evidence from 46,716 Ecuadorian women between 12 and 49 years old using survey data from 2006 and 2014. In particular, it was found, through count data models, that mother’s education level and the household income have a negative effect on fecundity.
In chapter 3, we start with the study of overcrowding. Considering that Ecuador is a country with emigration tradition and its relatively high rate of overcrowded households (17% in 2010), we approach these two issues jointly. Taking into account that overcrowding is trespassing a threshold of a measure that is a coefficient of people per area, and considering that Ecuador experienced a massive migratory wave, then a reduction of the numerator of this coefficient would imply a reduction of the overcrowding levels. Consequently, we test the hypothesis that migration reduces household overcrowding levels. If this research hypothesis is accepted, then the alternative hypothesis that emigration favors housing overcrowding due to its contribution to conform extended families in the left-behind household may be rejected. As a matter of fact, our empirical findings allow us to confirm our research hypothesis discarding the alternative one. We believe that remittances, as indirect effect of migration, play an important role in this housing improvement, which is in line with previous literature that indicates that remittances are a potent instrument of development in developing countries. Additionally, this chapter also allows us to understand the relationship between the migrant’s preferences to use their remitted fraction of his earnings to improve the living/dwelling conditions of his family.
In chapter 4, we deal with the consequences of household overcrowding. Basically, we verify the effect of overcrowding on the prevalence of respiratory diseases among the 0-to-5-year-old children of Ecuadorian households. Considering that overcrowding has been associated with respiratory problems in children, we test if there is a relationship between housing overcrowding and its incidence on respiratory disease prevalence in Ecuadorian 0-to-5-year-old children. Indeed, our findings indicate a statistically significant positive relationship. Moreover, the urban housing settlement on the children respiratory disease probability is specially differentiated in the chapter. There is no doubt that the selected outcome variable in this chapter provides clues of other problems that can be consequence of household overcrowding.
Chapter 5 concludes the thesis indicating the main findings as well as futures lines of research.
