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Is Consanguinity an Impediment to Child Development Outcomes?

Author

Listed:
  • Mete, Cem

    (World Bank)

  • Bossavie, Laurent

    (World Bank)

  • Giles, John T.

    (World Bank)

  • Alderman, Harold

    (World Bank)

Abstract
Marriages between blood relatives – also known as consanguineous unions – are widespread in North Africa, Central and West Asia and most parts of South Asia. Researchers have suggested that consanguinity has adverse effects on child development, but assessing its impact is not straightforward as the decision to marry a relative might be endogenous to other socio-economic factors. Using a unique dataset collected in rural Pakistan, this paper assesses the extent to which consanguinity is linked to child cognitive ability and nutritional status. As economic benefits of marrying cousins may lead to upward bias to estimates of the effects of consanguinity on child outcomes, prior work likely underestimates the negative impacts of consanguinity on child outcomes. After controlling for current household wealth and parent education, this paper exploits (current and past) grandfather land ownership and maternal grandparent mortality to identify the effect of endogenous consanguinity on child cognitive ability and height-for-age. Children born into consanguineous unions have lower cognitive scores, lower height-for-age, and a higher likelihood of being severely stunted. More importantly, adverse effects are significantly larger after accounting for the endogeneity of consanguineous unions, suggesting that negative impacts on child development are substantial, and likely to be larger than suggested in previous studies. Reducing incentives for consanguineous unions should therefore be of concern among policy makers aiming at improving child development outcomes where marrying cousins is common.

Suggested Citation

  • Mete, Cem & Bossavie, Laurent & Giles, John T. & Alderman, Harold, 2019. "Is Consanguinity an Impediment to Child Development Outcomes?," IZA Discussion Papers 12665, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12665
    as

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    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp12665.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    consanguineous marriages; cognitive tests; malnutrition; household decision making; child development;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure

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