Intra-household resource allocation in rural Tanzania: Why women care about disclosure

D'Exelle, Ben ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9332-5223 and Ignowski, Liz (2022) Intra-household resource allocation in rural Tanzania: Why women care about disclosure. Journal of Development Studies, 58 (10). pp. 2021-2043. ISSN 0022-0388

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Abstract

How resources from development or social programs are allocated within the household is important for household welfare. Intra-household resource allocation does not only depend on who receives and allocates the resources, but also on whether the resources are disclosed to other household members. In patrilineal societies in rural Tanzania, like the one we selected for this study, we expect disclosure of the available resources to have a stronger effect on women’s allocation decisions than on their husbands’. To test this, we use a choice experiment with 664 couples in rural Tanzania. Each spouse allocates a hypothetical sum of money between themselves, their spouse, and their children. We randomize whether they are told to assume that these resources are disclosed to their spouse. We find that women respond more strongly to disclosure than their husbands. Disclosure of the resources makes women increase the share allocated to their spouse and reduce the share kept to themselves but does not change the share allocated to their children. This disclosure effect is stronger among women with a controlling husband and women who receive transfers from their husband but gets weaker with higher spousal trust.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Author Acknowledgment: We acknowledge the financial support of the ESRC-DFID grant ES/N014618/1 and KU Leuven (Methusalem Program). We thank participants at seminars or conferences at CSAE 2018, SEHO 2018, UEA, and NCDE 2019 for their useful comments as well as Joachim De Weerdt for his helpful suggestions throughout the progression of this paper. We thank Simon Sichalwe, Ramadhan Hashim, Denna Michael, the medical district officer of Misungwi and the team of enumerators in Tanzania for assistance during the fieldwork, and MITU-NIMR for institutional support. The data that support the findings of this study are available from Liz Ignowski upon reasonable request.
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Economics Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Global Development (formerly School of International Development)
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Sciences Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Behavioural Economics Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Environment, Resources and Conflict Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Gender and Development Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Impact Evaluation Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Behavioural and Experimental Development Economics
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	28 Jun 2022 09:30
Last Modified:	12 Jun 2023 08:34
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/85825
DOI:	10.1080/00220388.2022.2096441

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