Open AccessMeasuring and Changing Control: Women's Empowerment and Targeted Transfers
Author(s) -
Almås Ingvild,
Armand Alex,
Attanasio Orazio,
Carneiro Pedro
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
the economic journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.683
H-Index - 160
eISSN - 1468-0297
pISSN - 0013-0133
DOI - 10.1111/ecoj.12517
Subject(s) - empowerment , spouse , conditional cash transfer , cash transfers , women's empowerment , control (management) , cash , demographic economics , intervention (counseling) , economics , sample (material) , estimation , business , psychology , public economics , economic growth , political science , finance , management , poverty , chemistry , chromatography , psychiatry , law
This article uses a novel identification strategy to measure power in the household. Our strategy is to elicit women's willingness to pay to receive a cash transfer instead of their spouse receiving it. We selected participants from a sample of women who had already participated in a policy intervention in Macedonia offering poor households cash transfers conditional on having their children attending secondary school. The programme randomised transfers at the municipality level to either household heads (generally a male) or mothers. We show that women who were offered the transfer on average have stronger measured empowerment. Here, IV estimation confirms this result.