In It to Win It? Self-Esteem and Income-Earning among Couples
This paper investigates whether the relative self-esteem level of spouses can lead to within- household competition for inputs and affect economic gender inequality in the home. Using data on smallholder farmer couples in Cote d'Ivoire, the pa...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/291371602165418378/In-It-to-Win-It-Self-Esteem-and-Income-Earning-among-Couples http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34623 |
| Summary: | This paper investigates whether the
relative self-esteem level of spouses can lead to within-
household competition for inputs and affect economic gender
inequality in the home. Using data on smallholder farmer
couples in Cote d'Ivoire, the paper examines the
relationship between spouses' self-esteem and
income-earning in agriculture. Although the link between own
self-esteem and crop income earning is positive, there is a
"battle of the sexes" in which one spouse's
self-esteem is negatively related to the other's income
earning, particularly income earning in higher-value,
export-oriented agriculture. Women's outcomes are more
sensitive to their own self-esteem (positively) and to their
partners' (negatively) than men's. This negative
relationship is driven by individuals during middle age,
when self-esteem is considered most stable. A key channel
through which self-esteem appears to matter is by increasing
control over household land, which is a scarce but crucial
input to agricultural production. In addition to confirming
the importance of noncognitive skills for poverty reduction
in rural settings, the findings highlight the importance of
their impact on intra- and inter-household inequality,
especially in the presence of interlocking market failures
constraining the supply of inputs to production. |
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