Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP13486
Authors: Natalie Bau
Abstract: Policies may change the incentives that allow cultural practices to persist. To test this, I study matrilocality and patrilocality, kinship traditions that determine daughters' and sons' post-marriage residences and thus, which gender lives with and supports parents in their old age. Two separate policy experiments in Ghana and Indonesia show that pension policies reduce the practice of these traditions. I also show that these traditions incentivize parents to invest in the education of children who traditionally co-reside with them. Consequently, when pension plans change cultural practices, they also reduce educational investment. This finding further demonstrates that policy can change culture.
Keywords: cultural transmission; cultural change; kinship traditions; intergenerational transfers
JEL Codes: No JEL codes provided
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Pension Policy (H55) | Kinship Practices (J12) |
| Kinship Practices (J12) | Educational Investment (I26) |
| Pension Policy (H55) | Educational Investment (I26) |
| Pension Exposure (H55) | Kinship Practices (J12) |
| Pension Exposure (H55) | Educational Investment (I26) |