Remittances, Immunization, and Gender: Polio and Girl Children in the Punjab

Join us for our first session with Aniruddha Mitra, Associate Professor of Economics, Bard College, on Wednesday, October 11, from 5pm to 6pm in the Levy Conference Room, or on Zoom. Professor Mitra’s presentation will be followed by an open Q&A session with audience members – both those in person and on Zoom are welcome to ask questions.

Light refreshments will be served. Register to attend via Zoom here.

Professor Mitra will discuss how household access to migration and resultant remittance income in the Punjab province of Pakistan has helped to mitigate economic constraints that prevent children receiving necessary vaccination against Polio and Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR). Based on a Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey conducted in 2014, we find that access to remittance income, be it from within Pakistan or abroad, robustly increases the likelihood of children under five receiving the necessary vaccination. However, a more disaggregated analysis paints a far less optimistic picture: while remittances significantly improve the immunization likelihood of boys under five, they have virtually no impact on the corresponding likelihood for girl children. As such, access to remittances may not be sufficient to overcome the stark gender differentials in child immunization that have been documented across South Asia.

Aniruddha Mitra is an Associate Professor of Economics at Bard College, where he also directs the Global and International Studies program. He completed his dissertation at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and taught at Middlebury College prior to joining Bard in 2012. His research pursues three intersecting lines of inquiry, namely, the impact of transnational migration and associated transfers; the amelioration and consequences of gender inequality; and the incidence and impact of political violence.

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