Financial Literacy and Intra-Household Decision Making: Evidence from Rwanda

Antonia Grohmann and Annekathrin Schoofs
Additional contact information
Annekathrin Schoofs: University of Passau & RWI

No 186, Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series from CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition

Abstract: Research has consistently shown that women’s involvement in household decision making positively affects household outcomes such as nutrition and education of children. Is financial literacy a determinant for women to participate in intra-household decision making? Using data on savings groups in Rwanda, we examine this relationship and show that women with higher financial literacy are more involved in financial and expenditure decisions. Instrumental Variable estimations confirm a causal link. For this reason, we perform a decomposition analysis breaking down the gender gap in financial literacy into differences based on observed sociodemographic and psychological characteristics and differences in returns on these characteristics. Our results show high explanatory power by education, happiness, symptoms of depression, and openness, but also suggest that a substantial fraction can be explained by differences in returns. We argue that this results from a strong role of society and culture.

Keywords: financial literacy; women empowerment; intra-household decision making (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D14 G02 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-09-19
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-fle
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://rationality-and-competition.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/186.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Financial Literacy and Intra-Household Decision Making: Evidence from Rwanda (2018)
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:rco:dpaper:186

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series from CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Viviana Lalli ().