The Gender Impact of Crime on Time Use and Children Development in the Colombian Rural Areas Manuel Fernández Ana María Ibáñez Ximena Peña June 4 th 2010

Objectives Examine the coping strategies households adopt when confronting a violent shock. – Heterogeneous responses to violent shocks by gender – Whether this heterogeneity leads to changes in bargaining power within the household. Evaluate the impact of violent shocks: – On child development – Differentiated impact of shocks on boys and girls

Results Violence is not randomly targeted, but purposively directed to: – Relatively better-off groups – Certain municipalities. Coping strategies of households: – Collective strategies: reliance on collective action, cooperation with the government authorities, and seeking support from formal organizations or other community members – Individual strategies to mitigate the impact of the shocks is less frequently used

Results Need of households to generate additional income seems to be pushing males to participate in formal labor markets. Women partially substitute men in agricultural activities in their land plot and as seasonal agricultural workers, which implies reductions in their leisure time. Families are unable to protect their children from the impact of violent shocks – Childrens anthropometric measures are affected, especially for boys – No evidence of a negative effect on cognitive development.

Colombia: 50 years of internal conflict Attacks on Armed Forces and Infrastructure Homicide Rates per 100,000 Inhabitants

Number and Victims of Massacres Persons Wounded and Killed by Landmines Internal conflict

56% of municipalities have had at least one massacre between 1993 and 2009 The Vice-Presidents Observatory of Human Rights reports a total of 8,900 victims of massacres in the period described. 4,778 (53%) in the past ten years. 22 massacres in 2009

95.6% of municipalities have had people forcefully displaced between 1997 and 2009 The Presidential Agency for Social Accion (Acción Social) reports that 3.3 Million people have been forcefully displaced (7.9% of the Colombian population). The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) reports that Colombia has the second highest magnitude worldwide after Sudan

The Colombian Longitudinal Survey of Wealth, Income, Labor and Land (CLS-WILL) – 10,000 households: 6,000 urban and 4,000 rural. – Rural sample covers (mostly) small agricultural producers of stratum one and is representative of four micro-regions. The sample covers 1,000 households for each micro-region. – The first wave was collected between April and July 2010 – The preliminary results contained in this paper were calculated using observations from the 2,501 rural households available in mid-May The Data

Households Affected by Violent Shocks Incidence of shocks: 11.24% covariate and 1.32% idiosyncratic Types of Shocks

Distribution of Time Use by Gender and Violent Shocks

Participation in Labor Markets

Nutritional Status of Children and Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test Results by Gender and Violent Shocks

Descriptive Statistics Control Variables

Probability of Receiving a Violent Shock in the Household in the Past 12 Months (marginal effects after probit)

Strategies to cope with Violent Shocks by Gender of the Households Head

Effect of Violent Shocks on Time Use Household controls include: Age of the household head, female household head dummy, households with both head and spouse dummy, higher level of education in the household, number of members from extended family, number of children under 5 years of age, number of children between 5 and 18 years of age and number of members 65 or older

Effect of Violent Shocks on Time Use

Effects of Violent Shocks on Labor Outcomes Household controls include: Age of the household head, female household head dummy, households with both head and spouse dummy, higher level of education in the household, number of members from extended family, number of children under 5 years of age, number of children between 5 and 18 years of age and number of members 65 or older

Effects of Violent Shocks on Labor Outcomes

Effects of Violent Shocks on Child's Nutritional Status as Measured by Height for Age z-score by Age Group Household controls include: Age of the child in months, female household head dummy, boths parents live with the child dummy, higher level of education in the household, number of members from extended family, number of children under 5 years of age, number of children between 5 and 18 years of age and number of members 65 or older

Effects of Violent Shocks on Child's Nutritional Status as Measured by Height for Age z-score by Age Group

Effects of Violent Shocks on Child's Nutritional Status as Measured by Weight for Age z-score by Age Group Household controls include: Age of the child in months, female household head dummy, boths parents live with the child dummy, higher level of education in the household, number of members from extended family, number of children under 5 years of age, number of children between 5 and 18 years of age and number of members 65 or older

Effects of Violent Shocks on Child's Nutritional Status as Measured by Weight for Age z-score by Age Group

Effects of Violent Shocks on Child's Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test Results Household controls include: Age of the child in months, female household head dummy, boths parents live with the child dummy, higher level of education in the household, number of members from extended family, number of children under 5 years of age, number of children between 5 and 18 years of age and number of members 65 or older

Effects of Violent Shocks on Child's Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test Results