Estimating the Intrahousehold Incidence of Illness: Child Health and Gender-Inequality in the Allocation of Time

In this paper, the authors develop and implement a method for estimating the effects of infant morbidity on the differential allocation of time of family members based on discrete indicators of health and activity participation, commonly available in survey data, and within the context of a household model in which health is determined endogenously. Their estimates that take into account the "simultaneity" of health-activity associations indicate that increased levels of infant morbidity significantly exacerbate existing differentials in the accumulation of human capital across teenage boys and girls in Indonesia. Copyright 1990 by Economics Department of the University of Pennsylvania and the Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association.