Thesis advisor: Arthur Lewbel / This thesis consists of two chapters. In Chapter 1, I studied the consumption inequalities between men and women, as well as boys and girls, within the households in Sierra Leone. Through a collective household model, I found that women on average experience lower levels of consumption than men, with the inequality concentrated in households that are large or consist of more women than men. Moreover, there is little evidence of overall consumption inequality by gender for children, while both boys and girls have very high poverty rates. In addition, I developed a new strategy for understanding who is perceived as a child vs. an adult in a household, which improved the estimation. In Chapter 2, I studied the associations between sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes and adolescent obesity in the US. I found that the taxes were associated with a lower body mass index and a lower probability of being overweight or obese. I found that SSBs and milk consumption had mediating roles, as tax increases were associated with decreases in SSB consumption and increases in milk consumption. Given the limited implementation and recent preemption of SSB taxes across the US, these results would help in understanding the potential benefits of implementing SSB taxes on a larger scale. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

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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.

No description available.