[séminaire CREM] "Culture, Intra-household Distribution and Individual Poverty" - Faculté Des Sciences Economiques

Co-écrit avec Ulugbek Aminjonov, Olivier Bargain, Maira Colacce et Luca Tiberti.

Abstract: Traditional family structures often have persistent effects on household decisions. We question whether kinship traditions of post-marital residence – i.e. living with the parents of the groom (patrilocality) or the bride (matrilocality) – still affect women’s bargaining power. We focus on Ghana and Malawi, two countries in which patrilocal and matrilocal ancestries coexist in the present-day ethnic distribution. We estimate a model of resource allocation using household expenditure surveys and information on prevalent ethnic norms based on the Ethnographic Atlas. Estimations show that ancestral patrilocality, relative to matrilocality, corresponds to a 10 percent lower share of resources accruing to women, as well as a substantially higher risk of poverty for women – and a much lower one for men – at most levels of households’ consumption. Women’s bargaining power tends to increase with age, a pattern mainly driven by matrilocality. These results indicate how a combination of cultural and demographic factors can improve the design of policies aimed to target poor individuals rather than households as a whole.