Gender Bias in Intrahousehold Allocation: Evidence from an Unintentional Experiment

Luis H.B. Braido; Pedro Olinto; Helena Perrone

doi:10.1162/rest_a_00205

Gender Bias in Intrahousehold Allocation: Evidence from an Unintentional Experiment

Luis H.B. Braido^1,2; Pedro Olinto³; Helena Perrone^4,5

¹ Escola Brasileira de Economia e Finanças · ² Fundação Getulio Vargas · ³ World Bank · ⁴ Universitat Pompeu Fabra · ⁵ Barcelona School of Economics

The Review of Economics and Statistics 2012 open access

We use data from a Brazilian social program to investigate the existence of gender bias in intrahousehold allocations of resources. The program makes cash transfers to mothers and pregnant women in poor households. Bureaucratic mistakes, beyond the control of the applicants, have inadvertently excluded many households that had applied and were accepted to the program. This unintentional natural experiment is used to identify the impact of an exogenous variation in female nonlabor income over household consumption. We find that program participation led to an increase in food expenditure, but this effect is not due to women being the benefit recipients.

DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_00205
Volume: 94 (2)
Pages: 552-565
Language: en
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