Productivity, Health, and Inequality in the Intrahousehold Distribution of Food in Low-Income Countries.

A model is formulated incorporating linkages among nutrition, labor-market productivity, health heterogeneity, and the intrahousehold distribution of food and work activities in a subsistence economy. Empirical results, based on a sample of households from Bangladesh, indicate that, despite considerable intrahousehold disparities in calorie consumption, households are averse to inequality. Furthermore, consistent with the model, the results also indicate that both the higher level and greater variance in the calories consumed by men relative to women reflect in part the greater participation by men in activities in which productivity is sensitive to health status. Copyright 1990 by American Economic Association.