Using Quasi-Experimental Approaches to Study Child Development in Low and Middle-Income Countries

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Developmental science has long been invested in understanding the causal links between environmental characteristics and child development. Yet, establishing causality outside of experimental research designs is challenging, and quasi-experimental techniques remain underutilized in the developmental literature. This symposium presents three novel quasi-experimental approaches to identifying the effect of environmental factors on children’s development, focusing specifically on low and middle-income countries (LMICs), where the use of such approaches is scarce.

The first paper uses data from a nationally representative survey in Uganda, and identifies a positive effect of maternal education on parenting practices and early child development by using exogenous variation in educational attainment resulting from an education reform that abolished school fees. The second paper leverages geospatial and temporal variation in exposure to armed conflict to identify sizable negative effects of this conflict on parenting practices, using nationally representative surveys from Uganda, Burundi and Chad. The third paper uses data collected as part of a home visit parenting intervention in Nicaragua to estimate the effect of exposure to political violence on parent-child interactions and child behavior, using exogenous variation in the timing of data collection relative to the emergence of the political crisis. The study also examines whether participation in home visits mitigates the adverse consequences of violence exposure for families.

As a whole, the symposium illustrates methodological and conceptual challenges related to causal inference, alongside the opportunity that novel quasi-experimental methods offer to developmental science in LMICs.

This symposium is comprised of doctoral students and early career scholars.

Sub Unit

• Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Chair

• Maya M Escueta, Columbia University

Discussant

• Dana Charles McCoy, Harvard University

Individual Presentations

• The effect of maternal education on early childhood development in Uganda: an instrumental variables approach - Presenting Author: Jorge Cuartas, Harvard University

• The Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma: The effect of a mother’s childhood exposure to armed conflict - Presenting Author: Maya M Escueta, Columbia University

• Building Child and Family Resiliency in the Face of Political Violence: Evidence from Nicaragua - Presenting Author: Jane Leer, Boston College