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  • 2019
  • Working Paper

On Her Own Account: How Strengthening Women's Financial Control Affects Labor Supply and Gender Norms

By: Natalia Rigol, Erica Field, Rohini Pande, Simone Schaner and Charity Troyer-Moore
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
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Abstract

Can greater control over earned income incentivize women to work and influence gender norms? In collaboration with Indian government partners, we provided rural women with individual bank accounts and randomly varied whether their wages from a public workfare program were directly deposited into these accounts or into the male household head’s account (the status quo). Women in a random subset of villages were also trained on account use. In the short run, relative to women just offered bank accounts, those who also received direct deposit and training increased their labor supply in the public and private sectors. In the long run, gender norms liberalized: women who received direct deposit and training became more accepting of female work, and their husbands perceived fewer social costs to having a wife who works. These effects were concentrated in households with otherwise lower levels of, and stronger norms against, female work. Women in these households also worked more in the long run and became more empowered. These patterns are consistent with models of household decision-making in which increases in bargaining power from greater control over income interact with, and influence, gender norms.

Keywords

Gender Norms; Economics; Gender; Employment; Income; Societal Protocols; India

Citation

Rigol, Natalia, Erica Field, Rohini Pande, Simone Schaner, and Charity Troyer-Moore. "On Her Own Account: How Strengthening Women's Financial Control Affects Labor Supply and Gender Norms." NBER Working Paper Series, No. 26294, September 2019.
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About The Author

Natalia Rigol

Entrepreneurial Management
→More Publications

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  • What Do Impact Investors Do Differently? By: Shawn A. Cole, Leslie Jeng, Josh Lerner, Natalia Rigol and Benjamin N. Roth
  • Banking on Transparency for the Poor: Experimental Evidence from India By: Erica M. Field, Natalia Rigol, Charity M. Troyer Moore, Rohini Pande and Simone G. Schaner
  • Investing in the Next Generation: The Long-Run Impacts of a Liquidity Shock By: Patrick Agte, Arielle Bernhardt, Erica M. Field, Rohini Pande and Natalia Rigol
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