Intrahousehold Resource Allocation Research Articles

Poverty and intra-household distribution of work time in Turkey: Analysis and some policy implications

Inequalities in work time might provide important insights on how poverty is experienced by people. Despite the growing body of literature on poverty and intra-household allocation of resources in Turkey, the linkages between poverty and inequalities in time use have not been studied empirically using nationwide data. We look at how distribution of paid and unpaid work burden differs between households of different income levels using the first and the single national time use survey in Turkey. Our results reveal one hidden dimension of poverty; a time deficit alongside the more obvious income deficit. We also find that the effects of time poverty are felt more severely by women, given the already uneven distribution of unpaid work within the Turkish household. We conclude that social policies targeting not only income but also time poverty, like provision of public care services for children and elderly, may have a double effect by relieving unpaid time burden of women and increasing female labor market participation, and therefore, increasing household income further.

Superstition effects versus cohort effects: is it bad luck to be born in the year of the fire horse in Japan?

The year of the fire horse (called “Hinoeuma” in Japanese) is one of the sixty Chinese zodiac symbols used to count years. According to superstition, fire horse women are said to have troubled marriages, to mistreat men, and to cause early deaths for their husbands and fathers. No such stigma applies to men born in these years. This paper attempts to investigate the impact of women’s birth in the most recent fire horse year (1966) on the outcome of their lives by using individual-level microdata. We find that there is no evidence of disadvantages to fire horse women in human capital investment, performance in the marriage market, or intra-household allocation of resources after marriage. We provide two plausible explanations for this lack of impact from the stigma: a cohort size effect and a dynamic transition in the share of arranged and love marriages. The latter affected parents’ decisions in 1966 as well as the performance of fire horse women in the marriage market and in intra-household resource allocation after marriage. This finding suggests the importance of careful attention to the dynamic effects of society and the economy that may occur before the emergence of a cohort size effect.

A note on separability and intra-household resource allocation in a collective household model

This paper shows that it is possible to track the changes in the distribution of power within a couple by focusing on the changes in the pattern of private consumption when the consumption decisions are efficient and private consumption is separable from public consumption in individual preferences. We first show that the separability of private consumption from public consumption at the individual level carries over to the household level. Hence, changes in public consumption only matters through a change in the residual budget available for private consumption. When the consumption decisions within the household is efficient, private consumption decisions can be modeled as the solution of a problem consisting in maximizing a weighted sum of the private-consumption sub-utility functions of the spouses under the residual budget, the weights being unique and representing the distribution of power over the allocation of private consumption. The model presented in this paper can be used to analyze the changes in the household resource allocation due to, for example, childbirth.

Economic well-being and poverty among the elderly: An analysis based on a collective consumption model

We apply the collective consumption model of Browning et al. (2010) to analyse economic well-being and poverty among the elderly. The model focuses on individual preferences, a consumption technology that captures the economies of scale of living in a couple, and a sharing rule that governs the intra-household allocation of resources. The model is applied to a time series of Dutch consumption expenditure surveys. Our empirical results indicate substantial economies of scale and a wife's share that is increasing in total expenditures. We further calculated two sets of poverty rates: one based on the collective consumption model and one based on the traditional approach with a standard equivalence scale. Poverty among widowers is underestimated by the traditional approach. The same is true for women (men) in elderly couples for the first (later) time periods in our analysis. Finally, we analysed the impact of becoming a widow(er). Based on cross-sectional evidence, we find that the drop in material well-being following the husband's death is rather substantial for women. For men, the picture is reversed.

The Sharing Rule: Where Is It?

The search for a robust and stable sharing rule has led us to novel results about identification of the rule governing the intra-household allocation of resources. We introduce an income proportionality property that directly connects distribution factors with individual incomes and implement this identifying condition to obtain an exact correspondence between the structural and reduced form of the adopted collective demand equations. The paper first reexamines the collective model of household consumption and shows that a) the collective model as traditionally developed is not identified, b) illustrates the novel income proportionality condition, and c) derives a restriction allowing full identification. In the tradition of collective theory, we exploit information about private consumption of an assignable good, clothing for adults and children in our application, prices and distribution factor variation to estimate how resources are shared between adults and children in a sample of Italian households. Previous estimations of collective models where only limited to either the direct or indirect estimation of the structure. Our results open up the possibility of a direct structural estimation of a collective system of demand equations, and associated individual Engel curves, as easily as estimating a demand system based on a unitary framework.

Household Work, Labor Time And The Schooling Of Girls In Rural South Asia

This paper uses an applied general equilibrium framework in which family labor use, including the labor of male and female children, is incorporated to examine the effect of income subsidy schemes designed to encourage schooling of children on intra-household resource allocation within rural households in Bangladesh. Various subsidy schemes that are tied to hours of schoolwork by girls or all children are examined under existing preferences and under altered preferences that increase the desire for schooling. The effects of these subsidy schemes are compared to a general income subsidy as well as a scenario where the demand for increased paid domestic work, which often is female child intensive, increases. It is found that household welfare increases most when a subsidy is combined with households altering their preferences by placing greater value on the education of girls. The success of policy experiments that have combined advocacy and educational reform with economic incentives can be explained from this finding.

How Does Childbirth Alter Intrahousehold Resource Allocation? Evidence from Japan*

AbstractExploiting unique panel data that include direct measurements of resource allocation within households, we investigated the impact of childbirth on intrahousehold allocation for married Japanese couples. Based on a collective model of the household, we developed reduced‐form and structural‐form estimation equations that allow us to focus on private goods to track the changes in intrahousehold resource allocation. We found one additional child is associated with a reduction in the wife's private expenditure share by at least two percentage points. This may be because she substitutes more say in decisions on the children for her own private expenditure share.

Altruism Within the Family: A Comparison of Father and Mother Using Life Happiness and Life Satisfaction

Studies on intra-household allocation of resources show that exogenous increase in mothers’ income has larger effect on children’s outcomes than the same increase in fathers’ income, suggesting gender differences may exist in parents’ altruism towards their children. Using self-reported life happiness and life satisfaction, we investigate the differences by gender in mutual altruism between father and child as well as mother and child dyads in Singapore. We found that mutual altruism exists between mother and child, but not between father and child. These findings are robust to the measure of self-reported well-being. Further, we find that gender difference in altruism of fathers and mothers is not driven by the difference in the extent of future old age support desired by fathers and mothers from their children.

Informal payments and intra-household allocation of resources for health care in Albania

BackgroundInformal payments for health care services can impose financial hardship on households. Many studies have found that the position within the household can influence the decision on how much is spent on each household member. This study analyses the intra-household differences in spending on informal payments for health care services by comparing the resources allocated between household heads, spouses and children.MethodsPooled data from two cross sectional surveys, the Albanian Living Standard Measurement Survey 2002 and 2005, are used to analyse both the probability and the amount paid in inpatient and outpatient health care services. A generalised Hausman specification test is used to compare the coefficients of probit and OLS models for nuclear and extended households.ResultsWe find that due to the widespread informal payments there are no significant differences between households in the incidence of informal payments for households' members, but there are more differences in the amount paid informally. Results suggest that households strategically allocate their resources on health care by favouring individuals with higher earning potential who have invested more in human capital. Extended households pay higher amounts for spouses with higher education compared to nuclear households. On the other hand, nuclear households choose to pay higher amounts for children with a higher level of education compared to extended households.ConclusionsThe differences between households should be taken into account by public policies which should compensate this by redistribution mechanisms targeting disadvantaged groups. Governments should implement effective measures to deal with informal patient payments.JEL Codes: I10, I19, D10

The Effect of Gender-Based Returns to Borrowing on Intra-Household Resource Allocation in Rural Bangladesh

Summary Income from rural microcredit borrowing can empower women and consequently lead to investments in children’s education and health. This article examines the effect of male and female self-employment returns to borrowing in rural Bangladesh on intra-household resource allocation and decision making abilities and how these effects differ with different borrowing sources. Household expenditure patterns measure intra-household allocation. The results show that female borrowers are better able to allocate their income toward goods more valuable to them and make major household decisions when their income increases. This serves as evidence of increased empowerment or bargaining power of rural women in Bangladesh.

A Note on Separability and Intra-Household Resource Allocation in a Collective Household Model

We consider a collective model of a household in which each member has a utility function satisfying the weak separability condition. We show that the separability at the individual level carries over to the household level and that the allocation of private goods in any Pareto-efficient allocation can be supported as a Pareto-efficient allocation of the private sub-problem. We also provide the necessary and sufficient condition for the Pareto weight for the private sub-problem to move in the same direction as the household Pareto weight.

Getting the Bias Wrong: Educational Opportunities for Boys and Girls in Mexico

Abstract:The First National Survey on Discrimination in Mexico, conducted in 2004, reported that 15 out of every 100 parents think they should not invest in their daughter's education because they will ultimately get married and it will be a waste of money. Using data from the Mexican Income-Expenditure Survey waves of 1992, 1998 and 2004, we did not find enough statistical evidence to support the idea that families provide less education to their 15 to 18 years old daughters. In fact, contrary to common belief, our results suggest the existence of a small pro-girl discrimination in education access at secondary school.Keywords: Gender; education; discrimination; children; Mexico.1. IntroductionThe intra-household allocation of resources has become one of the most important issues in human capital research. Several studies, analyzing developing countries, provide evidence that not only are resources not allocated randomly within households, but they are also unequally distributed within the family1.Different theories and models have been developed in order to explain household allocation of resources. In general, there are two microeconomic theories: unitary and collective household models. The unitary model was developed by Becker (1965, 1981); in this model, the family is conceived as a single decision maker, which regards child human capital as an investment decision. The models that follow Becker's approach assume the allocation is determined in one of the three following ways:* parents allocate resources based on the differential labor market returns to boys and girls (Rosenzweig and Schultz, 1982);* parents allocate resources according to their own utility, which depends on the well being of their children (Behrman et al., 1982 and Behrman, 1988);* parents allocate resources based on the productivity of each member (Pitt et al., 1990). On the other hand, the collective models allow for family members to have different utility functions, hence, resources are allocated according to the relative bargaining power of the family members2. Empirical studies have found that the wife's bargaining power increases the children's likelihood of being enrolled in school (Knight and Song, 2000), reduces the likelihood of dropping out of elementary school (Brown and Park, 2002) and increases the amount of money spent on the children's education (Song, 2008)3. The unequal distribution of goods within a family usually takes the form of a gender bias. In fact, there is a general perception of discrimination against female members. In many developing countries, girls lag markedly behind boys in schooling. However, although some empirical studies have found gender bias against girls in the form of lower human capital (education, nutrition and/or health), other studies have not4.2. BackgroundThe First National Survey on Discrimination in Mexico (Primera Encuesta Nacional sobre Discriminacion en Mexico), conducted by the Ministry of Social Development (SEDESOL) in 2004, reported that 15 per cent of the respondents think they should not invest in their daughters' education because they will ultimately get married. Lopez (2004) and Parker and Pedemizi (2001) find evidence supporting the assumed gender discrimination against girls in education opportunities in Mexico.Data suggest a quite different story. According to the Mexican Population Censuses of 1970, 1990 and 2000 and the Mexican Population Survey of 2005, elementary school enrollment does not differ by gender since 1990, and middle and high school enrollment does not differ since 2005 (Table 1). According to data from the Mexican Ministry of Public Education (SEP)5, there seems to be a persistent gender gap against boys in school completion since 1997 (Table 2). Aguayo-Tellez et al. (2007) do not find statistical evidence to support gender discrimination in education against girls or boys in Mexico.6The existence of a gender bias in education opportunities is very relevant for Mexico. …

Son Preference in Indian Families: Absolute Versus Relative Wealth Effects

The desire for male children is prevalent in India, where son preference has been shown to affect fertility behavior and intrahousehold allocation of resources. Economic theory predicts less gender discrimination in wealthier households, but demographers and sociologists have argued that wealth can exacerbate bias in the Indian context. I argue that these apparently conflicting theories can be reconciled and simultaneously tested if one considers that they are based on two different notions of wealth: one related to resource constraints (absolute wealth), and the other to notions of local status (relative wealth). Using cross-sectional data from the 1998-1999 and 2005-2006 National Family and Health Surveys, I construct measures of absolute and relative wealth by using principal components analysis. A series of statistical models of son preference is estimated by using multilevel methods. Results consistently show that higher absolute wealth is strongly associated with lower son preference, and the effect is 20%-40% stronger when the household's community-specific wealth score is included in the regression. Coefficients on relative wealth are positive and significant although lower in magnitude. Results are robust to using different samples, alternative groupings of households in local areas, different estimation methods, and alternative dependent variables.

Gender of Children, Bargaining Power, and Intrahousehold Resource Allocation in China

Based on the prevalent son preference in China, this paper proposes a new measure of relative bargaining power within the household. Using data from China Health and Nutrition Survey, we show that a woman with a first-born son has a 3.9 percentage points’ greater role in household decision-making than a woman with a first-born daughter. Having a first-born son improves the mother’s nutrition intakes and reduces her likelihood of being underweight. While thinking of these impacts as being channeled through intrahousehold bargaining power, we cannot fully rule out other possible direct effects of a first-born son on the outcomes.

How Does Childbirth Alter Intrahousehold Resource Allocation?: Evidence from Japan

Exploiting unique panel data that include direct measurements of resource allocation within households, we investigated the impact of childbirth on intrahousehold allocation for married Japanese couples. Based on a collective model of the household, we developed reduced‐form and structural‐form estimation equations that allow us to focus on private goods to track the changes in intrahousehold resource allocation. We found one additional child is associated with a reduction in the wife's private expenditure share by at least two percentage points. This may be because she substitutes more say in decisions on the children for her own private expenditure share.

Gender of Children, Bargaining Power, and Intrahousehold Resource Allocation in China

Abstract:Based on the prevalent son preference in China, this paper proposes a new measure of relative bargaining power within the household. Using data from China Health and Nutrition Survey, we show that a woman with a first-born son has a 3.9 percentage points' greater role in household decision-making than a woman with a first-born daughter. Having a first-born son improves the mother's nutrition intakes and reduces her likelihood of being underweight. While thinking of these impacts as being channeled through intrahousehold bargaining power, we cannot fully rule out other possible direct effects of a first-born son on the outcomes.

Global Poverty Estimates: Present and Future

We review the recent empirical literature on global poverty, focusing on key methodological aspects. These include the choice of welfare indicator, poverty line and purchasing power parity exchange rates, equivalence scales, data sources, and estimation methods. We also discuss the importance of the intra-household resource allocation process in determining within-household inequalities and potentially influencing poverty estimates. Based on a sensitivity analysis of global poverty estimates to different methodological approaches, we show that existing figures vary markedly with the choice of data source for mean income or consumption used to scale relative distributions; and with the statistical method used to estimate income distributions from tabulated data.

Gender, Time Use and Models of the Household

The aim of this paper is to explain why time use data are essential for analyzing issues of gender equity and the intra-household allocation of resources, comparing living standards, and estimating the behavioral effects of changes in policy variables. The first step in the exposition is to show that the neglect of these data in much of the literature on household behavior, in both developed and developing economies, can be traced to unrealistic assumptions on domestic production and the mistaken idea that non-market time can be viewed as leisure. It is argued that an approach is required that makes explicit the need for data on the time family members spend on domestic work as well as on labor supply. An approach of this kind is outlined and used to identify the specialized assumptions that are employed when they are missing. The paper also discusses the limitations of available time use survey datasets that are due to deficiencies in survey design. The more serious and common problems are illustrated using as case studies the Statistics South Africa 2000 Time Use Survey and the time use module included in the Nicaraguan 1998 Living Standards Measurements Survey.

Economic Growth, Intra-Household Resource Allocation and Gender Inequality

Economic Growth, Intra-Household Resource Allocation and Gender Inequality

Intrahousehold Resource Allocation and Women’s Bargaining Power: New Evidence from Bangladesh

By using data from a relatively recent nationally representative survey of Bangladesh, this paper investigates the relationship between intrahousehold resource allocation and women's bargaining power. Along with the two regularly used bargaining power indicators, viz. resources brought at marriage and earned incomes by men and women, an index of empowerment has also been constructed using the information on various social, economic and cultural practices under which women operate to find out if their improved position can have any significant influence on household budgetary allocations. Regression results reveal significant differential effects of men‟s and women's incomes and assets on the budget shares of different goods while the women empowerment index also registers statistical significance in most cases. Therefore, in contrast to the so-called common preference or the unitary model of household behavior the evidence seems to suggest that women's bargaining power and improved empowerment do influence intrahousehold resource allocation.