Intrahousehold decision-making in coastal Zanzibar: Experiments in behavioural development economics

Pethiyagoda, Shanali (2025) Intrahousehold decision-making in coastal Zanzibar: Experiments in behavioural development economics. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

This thesis advances the growing field of behavioural development economics by investigating three under-explored dimensions of intrahousehold decision-making: children's agency, spousal involvement, and spousal effort. Using three field experiments with children, parents, and spouses in coastal Zanzibar, Tanzania, I uncover the hidden behavioural processes through which household decisions emerge and ultimately shape gendered development outcomes.

The first chapter examines whether children's own preferences shape parental decisions about their human capital. Using a randomised controlled trial with 1,272 schoolchildren, I find that girls are significantly less likely than boys to secure paternal, relative to maternal, consent for free swimming lessons. Using a complementary choice experiment, I find that children's preferences over which parent to involve respond systematically to anticipated parental disagreement and perceived parental risk attitudes, with measurable consequences for parental decision outcomes and children's human capital development.

The second chapter assesses how spouses negotiate agency and spousal involvement in joint decision-making. To do so, I use a field experiment with 664 couples in rural Zanzibar that endogenises the decision process of spousal involvement. Focusing on outcomes relating to wives’ and children’s human capital development, I find that gendered gaps in decision outcomes are largest when spouses decide independently. However, once spouses are given the opportunity to defer to, or consult with, one another, these gaps largely dissipate, primarily because wives disproportionately align with husbands' preferences through the spousal involvement process.

The third chapter examines how spousal comparisons and evaluations influence effort through confidence and competition. Using an incentivised real-effort experiment with 1,328 spouses, I find that these behavioural motivators shape effort in systematically gendered ways. Husbands respond more strongly to learning that they are performing worse than their spouse, whereas wives respond more strongly to positive evaluations of their ability from their spouse, revealing distinct behavioural channels through which intrahousehold inequalities can persist.

My three chapters offer a granular account of who decides, who is involved, and who exerts effort within households. Collectively, they provide a behaviourally grounded understanding of how asymmetries across these micro-processes perpetuate intrahousehold inequalities. In doing so, this thesis offers new behavioural insights for policies seeking to strengthen children’s agency and couple's equity as pathways to broader gender equality and economic welfare.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Global Development (formerly School of International Development)
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	27 Jul 2026 10:11
Last Modified:	27 Jul 2026 10:11
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/103952
DOI:

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