IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/femeco/v21y2015i3p142-167.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sharing Common Resources in Patriarchal and Status-Based Societies: Evidence from Tanzania

Author

Listed:
  • Els Lecoutere
  • Ben D'Exelle
  • Bjorn Van Campenhout

Abstract

In rural African societies, socioeconomic differentiation linked to gender and social status exerts an important influence on the distribution of common-pool resources. Through a behavioral experiment conducted in 2008 in rural Tanzania, this contribution examines the influence of gender and social status on distribution behavior of users of self-governed common watersheds. It finds that men and women with low social status distribute water equally when water is abundant but keep larger shares when water is scarce, although low-status women try to be as fair as possible at the expense of their returns from irrigated agriculture. Men of high social status keep more than half of the available water for themselves, both in abundance and scarcity, and deprive others from sizeable returns from irrigated agriculture. Women of high social status share altruistically when water is abundant and equally when water is scarce, giving up on returns from irrigated agriculture.

Suggested Citation

  • Els Lecoutere & Ben D'Exelle & Bjorn Van Campenhout, 2015. "Sharing Common Resources in Patriarchal and Status-Based Societies: Evidence from Tanzania," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(3), pages 142-167, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:femeco:v:21:y:2015:i:3:p:142-167
    DOI: 10.1080/13545701.2015.1024274
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13545701.2015.1024274
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13545701.2015.1024274?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:femeco:v:21:y:2015:i:3:p:142-167. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RFEC20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.