Quarter of Birth, Gender Inequality, and Economic Development

Abstract

This paper discovers that people born in the fourth quarter tend to have better lifecycle outcomes for 1930-1990 cohorts in China, and this birth quarter effect (BQE) is larger for females than males. To explain this finding, we hypothesize that seasonality in agricultural production, combined with son preference, leads to a gender gap in BQEs on child neonatal investment, and subsequently, on lifecycle outcomes. Exploiting seasonal agricultural production patterns and spatial variations in crop structures across provinces in China, we find individuals born in seasons with more abundant household resources for neonatal investment tend to have better lifecycle outcomes. In addition, we leverage weather shocks as a natural experiment for agricultural production and find that higher agricultural output in the previous year reduces the gender gap in BQEs in a given year of birth. Exploring China's economic reform in 1979 as a quasi-experiment, we further find that the effect of previous-year agricultural output is mitigated by economic development. Finally, we find a gender gap in BQEs on child neonatal investment, which is proxied by infant breastfeeding. Our findings demonstrate that economic development lessens the effect of poverty on gender inequality.

Keywords: Birth quarter effect; economic development; gender inequality; neonatal investment; son preference

JEL Classification: I25, J16, O15