Our research will investigate the causal effect of reproductive health on poverty, primarily using data on randomized interventions that relate specifically to reproductive health. Our poverty indicators will include not only current variables such as household consumption and female labour supply, but also investments in the health and education of children, which are known to be critical for long term poverty reduction.

 

We will focus on Malawi, a highly policy-relevant context for understanding the relationship between reproductive health and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. Both poverty and poor reproductive health are widespread in Malawi, though there is little understanding of the causal relationship between the two. Poverty might affect reproductive health, and vise versa. The challenge of this research is to disentangle the causal effect of reproductive health on poverty.

 

Contact Information:

Marcos Vera-Hernandez, m.vera@ucl.ac.uk, Institute for Fiscal Studies