Pro-Girl Bias in Intrahousehold Allocation in the Rural Philippines: Revisiting the ‘adult goods’ approach

Fuwa, Nobuhiko (2014): Pro-Girl Bias in Intrahousehold Allocation in the Rural Philippines: Revisiting the ‘adult goods’ approach. Forthcoming in: Review of Development Economics

Abstract

This paper detects pro-girl (age 5-15) bias in intrahousehold allocation of consumption budget in the rural Philippines using Deaton’s “adult goods” method. Based on additional checks (including those for endogeneity), the results appear to be robust. The paper also finds that a larger share of girls among household members is positively associated with a larger budget share on transportation, suggesting that parents pay more for girls’ transportation, possibly due to safety concerns. The results also suggest that, despite some earlier results in the literature, the adult goods method is capable of detecting gender bias, although alcohol and tobacco may not be suitable for detecting gender bias.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: gender disparity; intrahousehold resource allocation; demand analysis; Engel curve; consumption expenditure; Philippines
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics; D - Microeconomics > D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics > D12 - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis; D - Microeconomics > D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics > D13 - Household Production and Intrahousehold Allocation; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J16 - Economics of Gender ; Non-labor Discrimination; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O12 - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O15 - Human Resources ; Human Development ; Income Distribution ; Migration

References

Ahmad, Asif and Jonathan Morduch, "Identifying Sex Bias in the Allocation of Household Resources: Evidence from Linked Household Surveys from Bangladesh," Harvard Institute for International Development Discussion Paper 463 (1993).

Altonji, Joseph G., Todd E. Elder and Christopher R. Taber, "Selection on Observed and Unobserved Variables: Assessing the Effectiveness of Catholic Schools," Journal of Political Economy 113 (2005):151-184.

Atkinson, Jane Monnig, and Shelly Errington (eds.) Power and Difference: Gender in Island Southeast Asia, Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press (1990).

Blanc-Szanton, Cristina, "Collision of Cultures: Historical Reformulations of Gender in the Lowland Visayas, Philippines," in: J. M. Atkinson and S. Errington (eds) Power and Difference: Gender in Island Southeast Asia, Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press (1990).

Browning, Martin, "Children and Household Economic Behavior," Journal of Economic Literature 30 (1992): 1434-1475.

Browning, Martin, François Bourguignon, Pierre-André Chiappori and Valérie Lechene, "Income and Outcomes: A Structural Model of Intra-household Allocation," Journal of Political Economy 102 (1994): 1067-1096

Burgess, Robin, and Juzhong Zhuang, "Dimensions of Gender Bias in Intrahousehold Allocation in Rural India," Unpublished manuscript, London School of Economics (1996).

Case, Ann and Angus Deaton, "Consumption, Health, Gender and Poverty," Unpublished manuscript, Princeton University Research Program on Development Studies (2002).

Deaton, Angus, "Looking for Boy-Girl Discrimination in Household Expenditure Data," World Bank Economic Review 3 (1989): 1-15.

Deaton, Angus, The Analysis of Household Surveys: A Microeconometric Approach to Development Policy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press (1997).

Fuwa, Nobuhiko, Report on the 2003 Livelihood System of Rural Households Survey in the Philippines. Unpublished, Los Baños: International Rice Research Institute (2005).

Fuwa, Nobuhiko, Seiro Ito, Kensuke Kubo, Takashi Kurosaki, and Yasuyuki Sawada, "Gender Discrimination, Intra- household Resource Allocation, and Importance of Spouse's Fathers: evidence on expenditure from rural Andhra Pradesh," Developing Economies 44 (2006):398-439.

Fuwa, Nobuhiko, "Intrahousehold Analysis using Household Consumption Data: Would the potential benefit of collecting individual-level consumption data justify its cost? " in S. Ito (ed) Agricultural Production, Household Behavior, and Child Labor in Andhra Pradesh, Institute of Developing Economies Joint Research Program Series 135 (2006).

Gibson, John and Scott Rozelle, "Is it Better to be a Boy?: A disaggregated Outlay Equivalent Analysis of Gender Bias in Papua New Guinea," The Journal of Development Studies 40 (2003):115-36.

Haddad, Lawrence, and Ravi Kanbur, "How Serious is the Neglect of Intra-household Inequality?" The Economic Journal 100 (1990): 866-888.

Hausmann, Ricardo, Laura D. Tyson and Saadia Zahidi, S., The Global Gender Gap Report 2009, Geneva: World Economic Forum (2009).

Kingdon, Geeta Gandhi, "Where Has All the Bias Gone? Detecting Gender Bias in the Intrahousehold Allocation of Educational Expenditure," Economic Development and Cultural Change 53 (2005):409-451.

Marshall, W.A., Body Weights and Heights by Countries, Unpublished manuscript, Joint FAO/WHO/UNU Expert Consultation on Energy and Protein Requirements (1981).

Nakpil, Carmen G., Women Enough and Other Essays. Quezon City: Vibal Publishing (1963).

Quisumbing, Agnes R., Jonna P. Estudillo and Keijiro Otsuka, Land and Schooling: Transferring Wealth across Generations, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press (2004).

Strauss, John and Kathleen Beegle, "Intrahousehold Allocations: A review of theories, empirical evidence and policy issues," Michigan State University International Development Working Paper 62 (1996).

Subramanian, Shankar, and Angus Deaton, "Gender Effects in Indian Consumption Patterns," Sarvekshana 14 (1991):1-12.

World Bank, World Development Indicators. Washington DC: World Bank (2013).