This thesis comprises three stand-alone chapters: The first chapter is on the effect of natural disasters on labor markets. Using data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey, the Desinventar database, the US Geological Survey and district level employment indicators, we explore how a large earthquake in Indonesia affected local labor markets, in particular the evolution of wages and employment across sectors. We find that wage growth in the agriculture sector is significantly higher in earthquake affected areas. We propose two mechanisms for this result and show evidence for both mechanisms. The second chapter investigates the intra-household allocation of leisure and consumption among siblings. Children are often treated as passive members in the household and their preferences over consumption and leisure are rarely modeled. This chapter considers children as agents with their own preferences over leisure and consumption and builds a theoretical and empirical model for children's time and consumption allocations in a household. We test the predictions of the model with data from Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam. The results suggest that differences in siblings' relative time and consumption allocations are driven by their relative preferences over leisure and consumption rather than differences in parents' relative altruism. The third chapter examines the cost of transport infrastructure in developing countries. To our knowledge, this is the first study that analyzes drivers of unit costs of construction of transport infrastructure using a large data set of 3,322 unit costs of road work activities in low and middle income countries. We find a large dispersion in unit costs for comparable work activities. Unit costs are significantly higher in conflict and corrupt countries, and these effects are robust to controlling for a country's public investment capacity and business environment. Finally, higher unit costs are significantly negatively correlated with infrastructure provision.

Recent research suggests that, besides traditional socio-demographic and built environment attributes, the attitudes and perceptions of parents toward walking and bicycling play a crucial role in deciding their children’s mode choice to school. However, very little is known about the factors that shape these parental attitudes toward their children actively commuting to school. The current study aims to investigate this unexplored avenue of research and identify the influences on parental attitudes toward their children walking and bicycling to school, as part of a larger nationwide effort to make children more physically active and combat rising trends of childhood obesity in the US. Through the use of a multivariate ordered response model (a model structure that allows different attitudes to be correlated), the current study analyses five different parental attitudes toward their children walking and bicycling to school, based on data drawn from the California add-on sample of the 2009 National Household Travel Survey. In particular, the subsample from the Los Angeles – Riverside – Orange County area is used in this study to take advantage of a rich set of micro-accessibility measures that is available for this region. It is found that school accessibility, work patterns, current mode use in the household, and socio-demographic characteristics shape parental attitudes toward children walking and bicycling to school. The study findings provide insights on policies, strategies, and campaigns that may help shift parental attitudes to be more favourable toward their children walking and bicycling to school. / text

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L’incertitude pèse sur les ménages ruraux des pays en développement. Cette thèse vise d’une part à mieux comprendre quels sont les conséquences de cette vulnérabilité sur les comportements et d’autre part à analyser la mise en oeuvre et l’impact des stratégies de gestion de risque, qu’elles soient internes ou externes au ménage. Le premier chapitre se concentre sur l’effet de l’exposition au risque foncier sur le comportement d’épargne en Angola. Il établit que les ménages non dotés de documents de propriété ne sont pas à même de cumuler une épargne de précaution. Ce comportement d’auto-Couverture ne se manifeste que lors du cumul de plusieurs risques. Le second chapitre se focalise sur la prise de décision à l’intérieur du ménage pour le choix de stratégies de diversification. Il s’agit d’étudier l’allocation du temps de travail des femmes au Sénégal entre le travail domestique et les activités génératrices de revenus. Un modèle de type sphères séparées avec un transfert entre conjoints est validé. Le faible rôle des incitations financières et l’importance du pouvoir de négociation sont démontrés. Le dernier chapitre analyse l’impact sur la vulnérabilité des ménages d’une intervention extérieure au travers d’un programme visant à l’accès aux services énergétiques. Son impact est mesuré sur la nutrition des enfants. Les résultats démontrent un effet positif et progressif de la présence de l’infrastructure sur la nutrition de long terme. L’intensité de fonctionnement réduit la malnutrition de court terme. Un effet de diffusion est également établi. Ces trois chapitres permettent de montrer l’incapacité des ménages à mettre en place des stratégies de lutte contre la vulnérabilité de façon autonome. Elles prouvent ensuite la nécessité de développer l’accès aux marchés dans les zones rurales. Enfin, le rôle de l’intervention extérieure pour fournir des instruments de gestion aux ménages est souligné. / Uncertainty hangs over rural households in developing countries. This thesis aims first to better understand the consequences of vulnerability on behavior and also to analyze the implementationand impact of risk management strategies, internal or external to the household. The first chapter concentrates on the effect of exposure to tenure insecurity in Angola on saving behavior. It states that households without document are not able to accumulate precautionary saving. This behavior of self-Coverage only occurs with cumulated risks. The second chapter focuses on the decision-Making within the household for the choice of diversification strategies. The allocation of women working time in Senegal between domestic work and income generating activities is studied. A model of separate spheres with a transfer between spouses is validated. The low incidence of financial incentives and the importance of bargaining power are demonstrated. The last chapter analyzes the impact of external intervention on household vulnerability through a program which aims to develop access to energy services. Its impact is estimated on the nutrition of children. The results show a positive and progressive effect of the presence of the infrastructure on long- erm nutrition. The intensity of use reduces the short-Term malnutrition. A diffusion effect is also established. These three chapters allow to stress the inability of households to develop independent strategies against the vulnerability. Then they make out the need to develop market access in rural areas. Finally,the role of external intervention to provide management tools to households is underlined

Cette thèse examine le poids du genre dans la structuration de la demande scolaire à Ouagadougou. Elle traite particulièrement du rôle des femmes dans la modulation des inégalités scolaires au sein des ménages. La recherche mobilise les données du recensement de 2006, celles d’une enquête quantitative sur l’implication des pères et des mères dans la scolarisation et des entretiens semi-structurés avec des femmes chefs de ménage réalisés en 2009, afin de revisiter de façon approfondie le résultat souvent observé en Afrique subsaharienne d’une meilleure scolarisation des enfants dans les ménages féminins. L’analyse porte d’abord sur les propriétés sociologiques du statut de « femme chef de ménage » et regarde l’élément qui le légitime comme une catégorie distincte de celle des hommes chef d’un ménage et lui confère une cohésion de groupe. Elle s’intéresse ensuite à la variation de la demande scolaire selon le sexe du chef de ménage et celui des enfants en lien avec leur statut familial. Il ressort des résultats que moins que le statut de chef de ménage, les configurations familiales particulières des structures dirigées par une femme en font des environnements favorables à la scolarisation des enfants, surtout des garçons. Il apparaît également une complexité et une ambiguïté du rapport à l’école de ces ménages, qui sont plus néfastes pour la scolarisation de certaines filles, conséquence des rapports sociaux de sexe inégaux dans la société exacerbés par le besoin en main-d’œuvre domestique des familles urbaines. La thèse met ainsi en lumière les potentialités des données du recensement pour une approche sexuée des stratégies scolaires familiales en milieu urbain burkinabè. / This thesis examines the mediating role of gender in the demand for child education in Ouagadougou. It specifically addresses the influence of women in the modification of educational inequalities within households. The research utilizes census data from 2006, data from a quantitative study on the involvement of fathers and mothers in education, and semi-structures interviews with female heads of household conducted in 2009, to elaborate on results often observed in sub-Saharan Africa that children are often better educated in female-headed households. The analysis deals primarily with sociological priorities of the status of the “female head of household” and examines the element that legitimizes them as a distinct category from male heads of household, creating a cohesive group. The study focuses then on the relationship between demand for schooling and the sex of the head of household as well as, the sex of children in relation to family status. The results demonstrate that regardless the status of the head of household, particular family configurations with structures headed by women provide a conducive environment for the education of children, especially for boys. A complex and ambiguous finding also emerged in regards to the schools of these households, which proved to be more harmful to the education of some girls as a result of unequal gender relations in society exacerbated by the need for domestic labor in urban families. This thesis sheds light on the potential for census data to provide a gender-based approach to family education strategies in urban Burkina Faso.

The thesis considers two pertinent questions about poverty in Fiji. One is about the accuracy of the poverty measures calculated by the concerned organisations and this relates to the use of equivalence scales and the general style of analysis. The other more intricate question is the disregard for poverty due to intra-family distribution asymmetries. Such miscalculations of poverty arise due use of average household per capita expenditure to represent consumption. This research attempts to answer the question of whether the tendency to underestimate the incidence of poverty by disregarding intra-family inequality is significant. Furthermore, it attempts to determine the causes of these inequalities. The issue is whether the classical method of data analysis (using the family as a unit) is the ideal way of analysing poverty and distribution in societies where large family structures exist and government relief remains minimal. To determine the household inequalities, household expenditures have been disaggregated into individualised expenditures. The individualised consumption expenditure is analysed and compared with the outcomes of aggregate household expenditure data. The analysis provides overwhelming evidence for underestimation of poverty when household consumption expenditures are used.

The thesis considers two pertinent questions about poverty in Fiji. One is about the accuracy of the poverty measures calculated by the concerned organisations and this relates to the use of equivalence scales and the general style of analysis. The other more intricate question is the disregard for poverty due to intra-family distribution asymmetries. Such miscalculations of poverty arise due use of average household per capita expenditure to represent consumption. This research attempts to answer the question of whether the tendency to underestimate the incidence of poverty by disregarding intra-family inequality is significant. Furthermore, it attempts to determine the causes of these inequalities. The issue is whether the classical method of data analysis (using the family as a unit) is the ideal way of analysing poverty and distribution in societies where large family structures exist and government relief remains minimal. To determine the household inequalities, household expenditures have been disaggregated into individualised expenditures. The individualised consumption expenditure is analysed and compared with the outcomes of aggregate household expenditure data. The analysis provides overwhelming evidence for underestimation of poverty when household consumption expenditures are used.

My thesis examines food allocation and nutritional outcomes in a sample of 152 individuals in thirty-two households of sugarcane workers in the municipality of Gameleira, Northeast Brazil. Anthropometric data show that undernutrition and overnutrition coexist in the study population, and often within households – a consequence of the changes in diet and physical activity linked to the nutrition transition. Food allocation was examined using an indicator of the frequency of consumption of high status foods - non-staple foods which are considered more desirable than staples because they add variety and taste to an otherwise monotonous diet. I created an intra-household index of food allocation in order to observe each individual's consumption in relation to the average in his or her household at two seasonal points of the year. The sample was split into two groups, a group of more affluent households in which high status foods were eaten on the harvest and non-harvest dietary recalls, and a group of less affluent households in which no-one ate high status foods on the non-harvest recall. I found gender biases in the allocation of food in favour of men relative to women, and girls relative to boys, in the higher income group, but no gender biases in the group of less affluent households. In relation to age, I found biases in favour of children relative to adults in less affluent households, but not during seasonal shortage in the higher income households. The biases were greater in households with higher incomes, but lower in households in which women controlled some household income relative to households in which men controlled all income. I considered whether discriminatory behaviour underpins these biases, based largely on periods of observation in a sub-sample of six households, and concluded that food distribution operates as a powerful medium for the expression of differential status among men and women, but not among boys and girls, who have equal status in this population.

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