This project examines how resource inequalities among children are affected by demographic transitions, including quantitative transformations in family size but also qualitative transformations in the context under which children are born (esp. the age, marital status, education, and employment of mothers).

Current demographic changes in developing countries can create a window of opportunity for enhancing the human capital of children. Global policy makers, including the United Nations and World Bank, are interested in understanding how to best seize this opportunity and the kinds of policies that would be most effective in this regard. If research can provide reliable guidance on this issue, this could greatly enhance the educational opportunity of millions of children within the developing world, at the same time as it would make it easier for governments and global development institutions to make a more economic use of scarce public resources.

Since last year, I have completed the theoretical phase of the work and published a conceptual piece (in Demographic Research). A more expanded development of this theoretical argument and an empirical analysis have now been completed, for six sub-Saharan countries. While this work is still under review (in Demography), we have already brought these ideas to the attention of key funding and development organizations. I am also submitting a research proposal to generate policy-relevant estimates of the dividends in several other countries and how policies could make a difference.

This work has now moved beyond its early stages and its expected impacts are two-fold. One is that planners will be better able to appraise the potential benefits from current demographic transitions and evaluate how to best take advantage of this one-time window of opportunity. If policy makers act on reliable evidence, this could improve the educational opportunities of millions of children in the developing world, at the same time as it would sow the seeds for longer-term growth, as the gains in the current generation of children spill over to the next generation. A second impact is to draw attention to the potentially adverse effects of current demographic transitions on schooling inequality. The "window of opportunity" presented by demographic transitions could well not benefit all children and instead excaerbate inequality. Documenting this potential for inequality would make it possible to consider pre-emptive policies to avoid hurting the poor.

Support policy efforts to reduce global poverty

• Mayra Buvinic (World Bank)
• David Sahn (Cornell Human Ecology (Division of Nutritional Sciences))
• Julie DaVanzo (RAND Corporation)