children below 6 and those between 7 and 14 are equally important in reducing enrolment. While the hypotheses of intra-siblings competing resources and household labor demand cannot be distinguished here, the evidence suggests that teenagers with younger siblings were affected. This evidence is corroborated by the estimates of age effects. While the probability of enrolment decreases with age (especially among Secondary aged children) during and after the crisis, the probability of enrolment decreased significantly more, particularly for those between 16 and 18 years.<sup>10</sup> Conversely, the number of earners is negatively associated with enrolment of teenagers, supporting the story of teenagers freeing household labor supply in times of crisis.

In summary, during the period that covered the effects of the Russian crisis in Moldova, income and wealth played an important role in determining children enrolment in school. Distance and access to schools were less important. The results suggest that the crisis did have an effect on enrolment of children in the latter stages of Secondary Education, particularly those from families with younger siblings and pensioner heads. For younger children (7-10 years), however, income played a less significant role since poorer children increased their school enrolment while the better off stayed relatively constant. The evidence suggests that some decisions regarding household labor resources must have been made in order to provide additional labor supply (and additional income).

# 4.3 Health dimensions of welfare and vulnerability

Moldova inherited an extensive healthcare system.'" This extensive legacy, however, has presented a major burden to the government in face of a decade of difficult transition and of a major regional crisis. The response has been one of major restructurings and expenditure cuts. Many healthcare units have been consolidated and public fiscal expenditure on health has been steadily decreased over the years. According to official statistics, in 1999, after the Russian Crisis, public fiscal expenditure on health was 357.6 millions of lei-2.9% of the GDP. This same figure was 537.1 millions of lei in 1997, or 6% of the GDP.

In this section we explore the issue of vulnerability from the dimension of health. We first look at this from the aspect of household health expenditures and follow an analysis similar to that previously carried out for total expenditures. The idea here is to see the effects that the crisis might have had in households' health care budget allocations. Then, we turn to the related issue of health care utilization. Our major concern there would be to explore if, given the expenditure description, households in Moldova have seen their health care services utilization reduced after the crisis.

> '° The age effect also increases for those aged 11 to 15 during the cnsis, but in no significant fashuon. " As of 1998, all villages with 3,000 people or more were provided with a polyclinic and all smaller populations had some combination of health centers, posts, _orfeldscher_ pomts. In total, the system consisted of more than 305 hospitals, 1,011 health posts, and 189 health centers, placing Moldova's delivery network above Region's averages (World Bank, 2002).

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