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Whose Fast and Whose Feast? Intrahousehold Asymmetries in Dietary Diversity Response Among East African Pastoralists
Author(s) -
Villa Kira M.,
Barrett Christopher B.,
Just David R.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
american journal of agricultural economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.949
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1467-8276
pISSN - 0002-9092
DOI - 10.1093/ajae/aar038
Subject(s) - dietary diversity , pastoralism , stochastic dominance , diversity (politics) , dominance (genetics) , economics , demographic economics , inequality , household income , socioeconomics , geography , biology , econometrics , livestock , food security , sociology , mathematical analysis , biochemistry , mathematics , archaeology , anthropology , forestry , gene , agriculture
This article explores intrahousehold dietary diversity allocation within pastoralist households in eastern Africa. We estimate income elasticities of dietary diversity for demographic cohorts allowing asymmetric behavior depending on household circumstances. We find that household heads disproportionately bear the nutritional burden when household income is below mean, while other cohorts disproportionately enjoy the nutritional gains when it is above mean. The commonly assumed symmetric framework masks this intrahousehold behavior and produces biased elasticity estimates. Stochastic dominance tests show adult daughters as better‐off than other household members in their dietary diversity, sons as worse off, and little difference between male heads and their wives.