Children and Intra-Household Inequality: A Theoretical Analysis

Abstract

Abstract The issue of intra-household inequality has received increasing attention over the past decade. A number of authors (e.g. Sen 1984) have argued that resources within the household are not distributed according to need, and this has led to attempts by others to model intra-household allocative behaviour (see e.g. the discussion in the recent survey by Behrman and Deolalikar, 1989). The question of what happens to intra-household inequality when total household resources increase has been raised by Haddad and Kanbur (1990c). They argue, on the basis of empirical evidence on calorie adequacy from the Philippines, that as households become better off intra-household inequality first increases and then decreases; in other words, there appears to be an intra-household Kuznets curve. The behaviour of intra-household inequality as the household becomes better off is clearly important for policy, since interventions are often restricted to the household level while the objective is to improve the welfare of the least well-off individuals. It is also important as a reduced-form test of alternative models of intra-household allocation.