Intra-household allocation of time and money across siblings

Abstract

Abstract How work and consumption are allocated within the family has important consequences for the welfare of individual household members. Using data on time use and assignable goods for individual siblings across India, Peru, Ethiopia and Vietnam aged 5–17, I show that there is substantial within-sibling variation in leisure as well as consumption allocations. I then test whether there is evidence for favoritism in the joint allocation of leisure and consumption toward a particular gender. I find that boys with a younger sister have substantially more relative leisure compared to girls with a younger sister in all four countries. Consumption allocations are relatively higher for older siblings of mixed-gender sibling pairs, irrespective of the sex of the child. I reject that favoritism in consumption equals favoritism in leisure in three of the four countries. Finally, I show suggestive evidence on the role of reward and preferences for allocations of time and money in the household.