On Her Own Account: How Strengthening Women's Financial Control Impacts Labor Supply and Gender Norms

Erica Field, Rohini Pande (), Natalia Rigol, Simone Schaner and Charity Troyer Moore
Additional contact information
Erica Field: Duke University
Rohini Pande: Cowles Foundation, Yale University, https://economics.yale.edu/people/faculty/rohini-pande
Natalia Rigol: Harvard University
Charity Troyer Moore: MacMillan Center, Yale University

No 2201, Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers from Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University

Abstract: Can greater control over earned income incentivize women to work and influence gender norms? In collaboration with Indian government partners, we provided rural women with individual bank accounts and randomly varied whether their wages from a public workfare program were directly deposited into these accounts or into the male household head's account (the status quo). Women in a random subset of villages were also trained on account use. In the short run, relative to women just offered bank accounts, those who also received direct deposit and training increased their labor supply in the public and private sectors. In the long run, gender norms liberalized: women who received direct deposit and training became more accepting of female work, and their husbands perceived fewer social costs to having a wife who works. These effects were concentrated in households with otherwise lower levels of, and stronger norms against, female work. Women in these households also worked more in the long run and became more empowered. These patterns are consistent with models of household decisionmaking in which increases in bargaining power from greater control over income interact with, and influence, gender norms.

Pages: 80 pages
Date: 2019-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-gen and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d22/d2201.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found

Related works:
Journal Article: On Her Own Account: How Strengthening Women's Financial Control Impacts Labor Supply and Gender Norms (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2201

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
Cowles Foundation, Yale University, Box 208281, New Haven, CT 06520-8281 USA
The price is None.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers from Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University Yale University, Box 208281, New Haven, CT 06520-8281 USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Brittany Ladd ().