The dynamics of how different resources that are generated
within, or which come into the household are controlled and
accessed by its different members
Gender analysis has revealed some evidence of bias against
female members of households in the allocation of resources
such as income, food, nutrition, health care and education. These
patterns are not universal, however, and are also mediated by
other factors such as age, and birth order. For example, there is
little evidence of nutritional bias against girl children in SubSaharan
Africa, whereas in South Asia this pattern has been
widely noted. It has also been shown that resources controlled by
women, for example in female-headed households, are
distributed differently to resources controlled by men. There is
some evidence that women spend a higher percentage of their
generally smaller incomes on family consumption and children’s
welfare.
Conventional macro-economics treats the activities performed
within the household as non-economic and hence irrelevant.
Conventional micro-economists typically sees the household as a
consumption unit and treat it as a ‘black-box’, assuming genderneutrality.
It was the New Household Economics (pioneered by
Gary Becker in the 1960s) that challenged the conventional
microeconomic approach and highlighted the importance of
production within the household. In this model, all resources are
pooled and distributed in an altruistic manner by a benevolent
male household head to maximise the welfare of household
members. However, gender analysts, particularly feminist
anthropologists and economists, have demonstrated that this
characterisation of the household is naïve and ignores gender
power imbalances and conflict within the household.
Feminist models highlighted the fact that resources are not
always pooled and stressed the role of bargaining processes
within the household in determining access to resources. Gender
relations within the household are then seen as characterised by
both conflict and co-operation, whereby women tend to have less
bargaining power in the struggle over household resources (for
example, Sen). The division of labour and dynamics within the
household are seen also to influence opportunities and outcomes
for women outside the home, in employment for example. Certain
theorists suggest that women’s bargaining position within the
household is enhanced when they work outside the home. Other
mechanisms for enhancing women’s bargaining power in the
home include strengthened property rights, and membership of
collective organisations.
The household has often been used as the basic unit of analysis
in, for example, poverty measures. But because of inequalities in
intrahousehold distribution, household income-based measures of
poverty do not correlate neatly with gender-differentiated
assessments of well-being. Consequently, poverty reduction
strategies that target male household heads, erroneously assume
that benefits will ‘trickle-down’ to the rest of the household. Where
women are targeted with income-generating opportunities, it
cannot either be assumed that women will retain control of those
resources they bring into the household. This suggests the need
for improved data collection and analysis procedures that collect
more data at individual level, incorporate consideration of
intrahousehold dynamics and recognise the heterogeneity of
household arrangements.