Three Empirical Essays on Fecundity, Household Overcrowding and its Effects. The Case of Ecuador

Abstract

This thesis provide a complete and updated understanding of the household overcrowding phenomenon, covering the topic all the way starting in its causes.

This dissertation is organized in three chapters beyond this introduction and final conclusions. All of them use Ecuadorian cross section data. In the case of chapter 2 and chapter 4, data come from Ecuadorian Living Condition Surveys of 2006 and 2014; meanwhile, the Census of Population and Dwellings of 2010 is used for the empirical analysis in chapter 3.

In the chapter 2, we start by analyzing fecundity of women considering socio-economic characteristics. Indeed, high levels of fecundity may be considered the beginning of the household overcrowding problem. Clearly, fecundity and the size of the household are almost the same thing, if we consider fecundity at a household level. In the analytical part of the second chapter, we have analyzed the vast economic literature devoted to the study of fecundity, from which several testable hypotheses that relate it to household income, education level of the mother and her labor market participation have been derived. In particular, it was found, through count data models, that mother’s education level and the household income have a negative effect on fecundity.

In chapter 3, we approach international migration and overcrowding jointly. Taking into account that overcrowding is trespassing a threshold of a measure that is a coefficient of people per area, and considering that Ecuador experienced a massive migratory wave, then a reduction of the numerator of this coefficient would imply a reduction of the overcrowding levels. Consequently, we test the hypothesis that migration reduces household overcrowding levels. Additionally, we explore the key role of remmittances in the relationship.

In chapter 4, we deal with the consequences of household overcrowding. Basically, we verify the effect of overcrowding on the prevalence of respiratory diseases among the 0-to-5-year-old children of Ecuadorian households. Our findings indicate a statistically significant positive relationship. Moreover, the urban housing settlement on the children respiratory disease probability is specially differentiated in the chapter.