 Spending or saving? Female empowerment and financial decisions in a matrilineal societyUte Rink and Laura Barros World Development, 2021, vol. 141, issue C Abstract: This paper looks at household consumption and financial decisions made in a matrilineal society where women are traditionally the household financial managers. This culture was strongly altered by the British in the mid-19th century through Christian missionaries who proclaimed that the role of the household manager is ascribed to men and not to women. Using self-collected data from 650 individuals in the matrilineal state of Meghalaya, India, and exploring households’ distance to the historical Protestant base in Cherrapunji, we find evidence that households in which women are empowered spend more on welfare-enhancing goods, such as food, but are less likely to have savings left at the end of the month. Our paper contributes to the literature by investigating how a historical shift in female empowerment, mostly driven by cultural norms, can have long-term effects on financial decisions. Keywords: Female empowerment; Matrilineality; Culture; Savings; India; Protestant missions (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:141:y:2021:i:c:s0305750x20304691 DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105342 Access Statistics for this article World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes More articles in World Development from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.