Although adolescents represent such a large share of the population and conse-quently a large share of household resources are directed to them, they have been rela-tively neglected in the economics literature concerned with household resource alloca-tion. In Gender Equality and Investments in Adolescents in the Rural Philippines, Research Report 108, Howarth E. Bouis, Marilou Palabrica-Costello, Orville Solon, Daniel Westbrook, and Azucena B. Limbo combine ethnographic and regression analysis to examine the factors that determine how poor, rural households allocate resources for education, nutrition, and health among adolescent girls and boys and other household members.

Investments in the education, nourish-ment, and health of children not only improve their quality of life, they also increase their productivity while they are in school and when they enter the labor force, benefiting society as a whole and even future generations. But parents in low-income households cannot invest as much as they would like in the well-being of their children. Instead, parents are often compelled by their economic circumstances to rely heavily on adolescents’ contributions to family welfare, through work in the labor force, in farm fields cultivated by their families, and on household chores. Their labor may earn extra income for the family or it may free up time for adults to earn more income. Nevertheless, work performed for the family’s welfare places time demands on adolescents, restricting their opportunities for acquiring a better education.

Linguistic analysis of Filipino kin term-inology has shown a striking lack of gender differentiation. For example, the Tagalog language has a general term for child (anak), but no specific word for either "daughter" or "son." These language patterns are con-sistent with a lack of discrimination against females. Fertility surveys, too, almost invari-ably show that Filipinos are about as likely to desire that their next child be a daughter as a son. Indeed, a few studies have shown a slight preference for a girl among Philippine parents. Consistent with this lack of dis-crimination against females is the structure of the Filipino family, which is well-integrated into the families of the parents of both the husband and wife, and which is considerably more egalitarian than that found in most of the neighboring East Asian countries. The surveys of the Bukidnon households in this report support this view of relatively equal status of females and males in the intrafamily distribution of resources.

The Filipino adolescents surveyed for this report make major contributions to their families’ welfare (Figure 1). Boys and girls work about equal amounts of time in a combination of household chores, farm work, and wage employment. Girls, however, put in an extra 12 hours per week in school, compared with boys. Boys spend far more time than girls in agricultural labor, both on and off the family farm, which parents consider to be more strenuous (hour for hour) and more economically advantageous to family welfare than household chores, which fall largely to girls.

Demand for education by the adolescents themselves is apparently a key factor influencing the amount of education they receive. In the areas of the Philippines sur-veyed for this report, girls received somewhat more education than boys (Figure 2). Socialization patterns in the Philippines place emphasis on traits such as responsi-bility, patience, and sacrifice, and the formal education system expects and encourages these behaviors. Moreover, the school staff are predominantly female. In this environment, boys are less comfortable than girls. Girls are more highly motivated to seek better education.

Preschoolers also appear to be favored in the provision of health care. They are more likely to receive professional health care when they are sick. However, the report finds no gender discrimination in the selection of health care providers when family members fall ill. There is some indication that older household members (adolescents and adults) may spend more on clothing, personal effects, and other nonfood and nonhealth items as compensation for the favoritism shown preschoolers in food and health expenditures.

It is crucial not to lose sight of the fact that incomes among the households surveyed for this report are very low. As a consequence, life consists of much hard work for all adolescents, their diets are inadequate, they receive poor medical care, and their educations are cut short because their families lack the resources to pay for more advanced educations.

Policies that increase household incomes can do much to improve the welfare of adolescents, both girls and boys. Higher household incomes appear to be sufficient for welfare improvements for adolescents in the areas of education, dietary quality, health care, and consumption of nonfood, nondurable goods. However, while income is an important determinant, educational attainment appears to be strongly in-fluenced by the desire of adolescents themselves to stay in school. This desire is positively conditioned by the level of parental education. Innovative and cost-effective means need to be found to persuade male adolescents of poor, uneducated parents living in rural areas to remain in school longer.

Diets are especially poor in nutrients provided by nonstaple foods, and despite the apparent absence of gender inequality, such deficiencies can affect girls more severely than boys. Even where there is relative gender equality, as in this Philippine population, targeted nutrition and health programs for adolescent girls may well be warranted because of their greater needs for reproduction. For example, iron requirements for females of reproductive age are nearly double those of males. Even though iron intakes improve with household income, large increments to income would have to be realized (which reasonably could be expected to occur only over several decades) before iron requirements could be met for females through increased consumption of nonstaple foods. Supplementation may be the best short-term solution to this problem in that rich sources of iron in the diet are expensive, and nutrition education cannot solve the problem if women cannot afford to buy recommended iron-rich foods.

The ethnographic interviews uncovered a willing-ness on the part of parents in poor families to make substantial sacrifices to invest in the futures of their children through education. While adolescents contributed significantly to family welfare by under-taking household chores and working in farm fields, parents indicated that studies took precedence over this work, relegating chores to weekends and school vacations, as much as possible. Adolescents were expected to keep most of the wages that they earned in the labor force for themselves. It behooves government and other development agencies, then, to find a way to tap into parents’ willingness to sacrifice current consumption for their children’s future by identifying and implementing programs and policies that provide a high payoff to investment in adolescents’ education and well-being.

The success of such an endeavor will depend, in part, on developing a much deeper understanding of the role of adolescents in household resource allo-cation in developing countries. The findings of this report that females and males enjoy relatively equal status in the intrafamily distribution of resources suggests that Philippine examples could be used in cross-country comparisons as a counterpoint to case studies where gender inequalities are a major determinant of household resource allocation decisions. Such comparisons may well provide fresh insights.