Autonomy or Efficiency: An Experiment on Household Decisions in Two Regions of India
38 Pages Posted: 25 Apr 2011 Last revised: 27 Apr 2011
Date Written: April 24, 2011
Abstract
Dyson and Moore (1983) posit that women in South India enjoy relatively more agency than in the North. Their conclusions have become part of the standard picture of Indian rural society. In this paper, we examine using experimental data the implications of this regional contrast in female autonomy for the efficiency of family decision-making. We take a sample of 1200 couples from two areas in the north of India (Uttar Pradesh) and one area in the south (Tamil Nadu) that are often taken to exemplify differences in the autonomy of women and the nature of marital relationships. Generally, we find large-scale and robust evidence of inefficiency and the hiding of assets when this is possible. Men invest more and are more generous to their partners. Women are more willing to invest in a common pool when their income is earned through working and when assets are publicly observable.
Regarding the focus of our paper, we find continuing significant differences between North and South and we find relatively little evidence that urban living is associated with changes in the nature of marital behaviour. There are some differences between response to treatment but the key and striking difference between the North and the South is that in both rural and urban sites in the former region household efficiency is considerably greater than in the latter, which does on the face of it suggest a trade-off between autonomy and efficiency.
Keywords: Economic experiments, married couples, female autonomy, efficiency, intra-household allocation, North and South India, Dyson and Moore
JEL Classification: D130, Z130
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
Informal Insurance Arrangements with Limited Commitment: Theory and Evidence from Village Economies
By Ethan A. Ligon, Tim S. Worrall, ...
-
By Esther Duflo and Christopher Udry
-
By Esther Duflo and Christopher Udry
-
Gender and Say: A Model of Household Behavior with Endogenously-Determined Balance of Power
By Kaushik Basu
-
Kin Groups and Reciprocity: A Model of Credit Transactions in Ghana
-
Dynamic Bargaining in Households (with an Application to Bangladesh)
-
Risk, Network Quality, and Family Structure: Child Fostering Decisions in Burkina Faso
-
Is Literacy Shared within Households? Theory and Evidence from Bangladesh
By Kaushik Basu, Ambar Narayan, ...