This thesis has three pieces of empirical studies that analyse economic inequality across social groups (castes and gender) and its impact on human capital endowments in developing countries with particular reference to Nepal. Three aspects of inequalities have been examined: disincentive in educational attainment in female arising from labour market discrimination, disproportional representation of low-caste workers in better jobs and inequity in health care utilisation and health outcomes across castes. This study contributes to the literature of economics by developing a new theory and extending existing econometric models in analysing economic inequality across social groups. The first piece of research examines the impact of marital anticipation on female education in the presence of labour market discrimination. It develops a theoretical model for jointly determining the age at marriage and female education. The model hypothesizes that as females are not rewarded in the labour market as much as men are; married women are encouraged to engage in household work as a result of the intra-household division of labour in their marital union. Thus, parental anticipation of this effect affects their daughter's age at marriage and can influence investment in girls' schooling. It then estimates the causal effect of age at marriage on education in light of the theoretical model using household data from Nepal.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:600671 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Mainali, R. M. |
| Publisher | City University London |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/3512/ |
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