Does Increase in Women's Income Relative to Men's Income Increase Food calorie Intake in Poor Households? Evidence from Nigeria

Adebayo B. Aromolaran

No 51374, 2009 Conference, August 16-22, 2009, Beijing, China from International Association of Agricultural Economists

Abstract: This paper addresses an important but not widely investigated question of how calorie consumption in African low income households would respond to intra-household redistribution of income from men to women. Specifically, I use survey data on a sample of 480 households from semi-rural areas of south-western Nigeria to analyze the response of per capita calorie intake to changes in women’s share of household income, after controlling for per capita income and demographic characteristics at individual, household and community levels. I also examine the effect of marginal increases in household income on per-capita calorie intake conditional on the income distribution factor, women’s share of income. My results suggest that redistributing household income from men to women would not raise per capita food energy intake in rural south-western Nigeria. I also find that calorie-income elasticity is close to zero and conclude that neither gender neutral household income increases nor redistribution of household income in favor of women would substantially motivate increased food energy intake within households in the population under study. These results do not differ significantly when per-income is replaced with per-capita expenditure in the estimated model.

Keywords: Agricultural and Food Policy; Consumer/Household Economics; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20
Date: 2009-08
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:iaae09:51374

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.51374

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