Flexibility of Household Structure
利用非洲数据研究家庭通过寄养儿童来调整规模的决策，发现收入冲击、性别失衡、学校距离和网络质量显著影响寄养行为，且寄养在发送方和接收方之间不对称。
Abstract Using data I collected in Africa, this paper examines a household’s decision to adjust its size through child fostering, an institution where biological parents temporarily send children to live with other families. Households experiencing negative idiosyncratic income shocks, child gender imbalances, located further from primary schools, or with more “good” quality network members (fewer subsistence farmers and unmarried individuals and more educated members) are significantly more likely to send a child. Results reject an overall symmetric fostering model across senders and receivers, but evidence of symmetry is found when the test is restricted to exogenous income shocks and gender imbalances.