Gender Generations And Nonfarm Participation

The authors present an empirical analysis of intergenerational links in nonfarm participation with a focus on gender effects. Using survey data from Nepal, the evidence shows that the mother exerts a strong influence on a daughter's employment choice. Having a mother in a nonfarm sector raises a daughter's probability of nonfarm participation by 200 percent. The effects are truly dramatic for skilled nonfarm jobs. Having a mother in a skilled job raises a daughter's probability by 1,200 percent. Having a father in a nonfarm sector, on the other hand, does not have any significant effect on a son's probability of nonfarm participation when the endogeneity of education and assets is corrected for by the two-stage conditional maximum likelihood approach. But a moderate positive intergenerational correlation between fathers and sons exists for skilled jobs.