UC Riverside

The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate how can certain public policies affect female sex ratio and female empowerment. This dissertation also proposes an alternative mechanism that can be used to appropriately target population sub-groups for the implementation of public health related policies. Skewed sex ratio against female children is a persistent problem in India and sex selective abortions is concluded to be the most probable reason behind it. The biggest public taken by the Indian Government, in various stages, to address this issue is to impose a legal ban on any public or private health facility offering this service. The first chapter of this dissertation investigates whether the first stage of this policy was successful in improving the birth rate of female children. A much discussed hypothesis is that women's education or women's access to finance leads to betterment of the life outcomes of children in terms of school enrolment, child labor and female empowerment by improving their control over household resources. The second chapter of this dissertation looks at whether micro-credit programs directed towards educated women have any differential impact on social outcomes like school enrolment rates, child labor, expenditure on health and female empowerment. Another important issue that is extremely important in today's world is the appropriate targeting of public health policies. The third chapter of this dissertation proposes an alternative measure to estimate the extent of malnutrition across various population sub samples. This purpose of this measure is to construct a cardinal method enabling consistent comparison of the depth and severity of health deprivation across various population sub-groups.