Intrahousehold allocation and gender relations : new empirical evidence

The paper reviews recent theory and empirical evidence testing unitary versus collective models of the household. In contrast to the unitary model the collective model posits that individuals within households have different preferences and do not pool their income. Moreover the collective model predicts that intrahousehold allocations reflect differences in preferences and of individuals within the household. Using new household data sets from Bangladesh Indonesia Ethiopia and South Africa we present measures of individual characteristics that are highly correlated with bargaining power namely human capital and individually-controlled assets evaluated at the time of marriage. In all the country case studies we reject the unitary model as a description of household behavior but to different degrees. Results suggest that assets controlled…