Asset Ownership and Egalitarian Decision-making in Dual-headed Households in Ecuador

1. Asset Ownership and Egalitarian Decision-making in Dual-headed Households in Ecuador Carmen Diana Deere and Jennifer Twyman Center for Latin American Studies and Food & Resource Economics University of Florida

2. Motivation: Understanding Women’s Empowerment • What is it? • Process of acquiring the ability to make choices • Includes: Resources, agency, and achievements • Agency: “The ability to define one’s goals and act upon them” (Kabeer1999: 438) • How is it measured? • Women’s participation in household decision-making • Usually autonomous decision-making or having the final say in decisions

3. Central Questions: Are women empowered only when they are making most household decisions autonomously? • An alternative vision of empowerment: when women are able to negotiate as equals with their husbands to reach joint decisions. What factors promote egalitarian decision-making? • Feminist theory: Factors that increase their bargaining power within the household

4. Main Proposition: Women’s bargaining position within marriage partly depends on their fall-back position • How well off they would be in case of household dissolution (separation, divorce, widowhood) • Asset ownership by women an important component The problem: • Until recently few household surveys collected individual-level information on assets

5. 2. Methods and Data • Part of 3-country study (Ecuador, Ghana, India) financed by MDG3 Fund of Dutch Foreign Ministry • Ecuador study based at FLACSO, Quito • 6 months of qualitative field work in 3 provinces (focus groups, key informant interviews, asset market study) • Nationally representative survey of 2,892 households (EAFF 2010) • Truncated: doesn’t include the wealthiest • Employed both household and individual-level questionnaires

6. The respondents Adult couple in dual-headed households (68.5%) When feasible, answered HH questionnaire together; Individual questionnaire separately Adult male (6.7%) or female (24.8%) in single-headed households

7. Decision to work Decision to spend one’s own money How men and women report making their own decisions n = 1,776

8. Symmetry in decision-making: Whether both spouses make the decision regarding themselves in a similar fashion (paired)

9. The dependent variable Symmetry and agreement: Egalitarian decision-making

10. 3. Models • Focus on 2 decisions • Decision to work • Decision on spending one’s own money • Binary dependent variable logistic regression models • If egalitarian = 1 • Otherwise = 0 • 3 Models for each decision • Baseline • Asset ownership • Wife’s share of couple’s wealth

11. Explanatory Variables Asset ownership Wife’s share of couple’s wealth Who is employed? Who earns the most? Wife’s age, Age Difference Wife’s Education, Education Difference Locale: Rural/Urban, Coast/Sierra Consensual Union/Marriage Ethnicity Previous Relationships Socioeconomic status: Transfer Payment (“bono”)

12. Explanatory Variables • Who earns the most? • Wife 7% • Husband 74% • Earn same 10% • Disagree 10% • Asset ownership (housing, land, other real estate) • Wife only 8% • Husband only 12% • Both 45% • Neither 34%

13. Continuous Variables

14. Results—Asset Ownership

15. Results—Wife’s share of wealth Maximum: 0.43 0.44

16. How wife’s share of wealth impacts the odds of egalitarian work decisions

17. Results—Employment

18. Results—Who earns the most?

19. Results—Regions

20. Results—Model Statistics

21. Models in appendix (for comparative analysis with Ghana and India) • Different sub-samples • Decision to work: couples who both work (n= 827) • Decision on spending: dropped those who reported “not applicable” (n= 1635) • Socio-economic status different • Previously, used the Bono (CCT) • Now, Gross Household Wealth • Reconciliated, based on both spouses responses • Imputed missing values

22. Main changes with new sub-samples: • For both decision to work and spending decision: • Coefficient of both own assets now positive and significant*** • Coefficient of wife only owns assets still negative but not significant • Coefficient of woman’s share of wealth still positive and significant and non-linear • Coefficient of couple’s absolute wealth not significant

23. Tentative Conclusions • Women’s ownership of assets in dual-headed households is associated with egalitarian decision-making • When both husband and wife own assets, they are more likely to make egalitarian decisions • Wife’s share of couple’s wealth is associated with egalitarian decision-making • Maximum likelihood of egalitarian decisions when women own about 44% of couple’s wealth • Couples are also more likely to engage in egalitarian decision-making when both employed, and when husband and wife earn about the same

24. Future (on-going) work • Autonomous decision-making • Multinomial dependent variable • Index of decision-making (including decisions over health care, birth control), but can’t do agreement (only symmetry) Other outcomes: • Agricultural decision-making • Domestic violence • Poverty status

25. For the country studies & comparative report see: http://genderassetgap.iimb.ernet.in Thank you!

28. 5. Comparative Perspectives on the Gender Wealth Gap

29. Explanatory Variables • Rural 35%, • Urban 65% • Coast 53% • Highlands, 47% • Consensual unions 35% • Married 65% • Previous Relationships • Wife only 7% • Husband only 9% • Both 8% • Neither 77%

30. Explanatory Variables • Migrated (previously) • Wife only 1% • Husband only 3% • Both 1% • Neither 95% • Who is employed? • Wife only 4% • Husband only 45% • Both 47% • Neither 4%