This thesis comprises three essays in development economics that focus on child health and gender-related challenges in developing countries. All three essays use data from household surveys and apply micro-econometric techniques. The first essay examines the effects of child marriages on early childhood mortality in the next generation in Bangladesh. The main results found are that children born to young mothers, i.e. child brides, suffer from higher mortality in the first year of life than their later-born siblings; in poor households, these effects extend up to the fifth birthday. As expected, the estimated effects are the largest for children born to the youngest mothers. The second essay looks at age-specific correlates of child growth, i.e. at potential drivers of growth faltering in children. Descriptive analyses show how child-nutrition-age curves vary depending on the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of children and on the macroeconomic conditions they live in. Results of regression analyses indicate that the best predictors of the observed shifts and bends in child-nutrition-age curves are maternal and household factors. The last essay estimates upward educational spillover effects of children’s education on their parents’ gender-related attitudes and behaviors in Turkey. The results show that an increase in children’s education has positive effects on their mothers’ attitudes towards domestic violence and gender norms, with suggestive evidence that girls’ education is marginally more relevant than boys’. Conflict between parents also decreases but as a consequence of exclusively their daughters’ education.