COVID-19, Crises and Women's Control of Resources: Evidence from Mexico

97 Pages Posted: 29 Nov 2023 Last revised: 7 Mar 2025

Date Written: March 07, 2025

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between crises and the intra-household allocation of resources. Using data from Mexico, I estimate a structural collective model to identify the distribution of household resources among its members. Then, I construct a proxy for women’s bargaining power based on their control of resources and document how it evolves over periods of economic stability and contraction. The results indicate that during the COVID-19 crisis, women's control over household resources declined by approximately 4-5 percentage points compared to non-recession periods and by 6-8 percentage points relative to the financial crisis, with a more pronounced effect for households with children. I further analyze how this resource reallocation affects individual poverty. The findings highlight the heterogeneous behavior of intra-household inequality over the business cycle. It also suggests that the hypothesis that the financial crisis was a “man-cession” and the COVID-19 crisis was a “she-cession” holds in terms of intra-household resource allocation.

Keywords: Crisis, Resource Shares, Control of Resources, COVID-19

JEL Classification: D10, I14, I31, J10, H12

Suggested Citation

Casco, Jose L., COVID-19, Crises and Women's Control of Resources: Evidence from Mexico (March 07, 2025). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4645056 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4645056

Jose L. Casco (Contact Author)

Bank of Mexico ( email )

Av. 5 de Mayo 18
Colonia Centro
Mexico City, CDMX 06059
Mexico

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
145
Abstract Views
709
Rank
429,549
PlumX Metrics