IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jdevst/v38y2002i6p47-82.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Control and Ownership of Assets Within Rural Ethiopian Households

Author

Listed:
  • M. Fafchamps
  • A. R. Quisumbing

Abstract

This article investigates how the control and devolution of productive assets are allocated among husband and wife. Theory predicts that bargaining power within marriage depends on the division of assets upon divorce and on control over assets during marriage. Using detailed household data from rural Ethiopia, we show that assets brought to marriage, ownership of assets, control within marriage, and disposition upon death or divorce are only partly related. Productive resources are controlled by the household head. Disposition upon death or divorce only loosely depends on individual ownership during marriage but control is associated with larger claims upon divorce. Assets brought into marriage have little impact on disposition upon death, but matter in case of divorce.

Suggested Citation

  • M. Fafchamps & A. R. Quisumbing, 2002. "Control and Ownership of Assets Within Rural Ethiopian Households," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(6), pages 47-82.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:38:y:2002:i:6:p:47-82
    DOI: 10.1080/00220380412331322581
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00220380412331322581
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00220380412331322581?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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hoddinott, J. & Adam, C., 1997. "Testing Nash Bargaining Household Models With Time Series Data: Divorce Law Reform and Female Suicide in Canada," Economics Series Working Papers 99191, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    2. Hugo De Groote & Issiaka Dembélé, 1996. "Factors Influencing the Payments to Women in Malian Agriculture," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 78(5), pages 1340-1345.
    3. Alderman, Harold, et al, 1995. "Unitary versus Collective Models of the Household: Is It Time to Shift the Burden of Proof?," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank Group, vol. 10(1), pages 1-19, February.
    4. Lundberg, Shelly & Pollak, Robert A, 1994. "Noncooperative Bargaining Models of Marriage," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 132-137, May.
    5. Haddad, Lawrence J & Bouis, Howarth E, 1991. "The Impact of Nutritional Status on Agricultural Productivity: Wage Evidence from the Philippines," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 53(1), pages 45-68, February.
    6. Haddad, Lawrence & Kanbur, Ravi, 1990. "How Serious Is the Neglect of Intra-Household Inequality?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(402), pages 866-881, September.
    7. Quisumbing, Agnes R., 1994. "Intergenerational transfers in Philippine rice villages : Gender differences in traditional inheritance customs," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 167-195, April.
    8. Adams, Jennifer M., 1991. "Female wage labor in rural Zimbabwe," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 19(2-3), pages 163-177.
    9. Lundberg, Shelly & Pollak, Robert A, 1993. "Separate Spheres Bargaining and the Marriage Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(6), pages 988-1010, December.
    10. Chiappori, Pierre-Andre & Haddad, Lawrence & Hoddinott, John & Kanbur, Ravi, 1993. "Unitary versus collective models of the household : time to shift theburden of proof?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1217, The World Bank.
    11. Webb, Patrick & von Braun, Joachim & Yohannes, Yisehac, 1992. "Famine in Ethiopia: policy implications of coping failure at national and household levels," Research reports 92, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    12. Elaina Rose, 1999. "Consumption Smoothing and Excess Female Mortality in Rural India," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(1), pages 41-49, February.
    13. Bouis, Howarth E., 1994. "Agricultural technology and food policy to combat iron deficiency in developing countries," FCND discussion papers 1, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    14. Hoddinott, John & Adam, Christopher, 1998. "Testing Nash-bargaining household models with time-series data," FCND discussion papers 52, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    15. Marjorie B. McElroy, 1990. "The Empirical Content of Nash-Bargained Household Behavior," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 25(4), pages 559-583.
    16. Gita Gopal & Elizabeth Adu, 1999. "Gender and Law : Eastern Africa Speaks," World Bank Publications - Reports 9876, The World Bank Group.
    17. Chiappori, Pierre-Andre, 1988. "Rational Household Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(1), pages 63-90, January.
    18. Jiggins, Janice, 1989. "How poor women earn income in sub-Saharan Africa and what works against them," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 17(7), pages 953-963, July.
    19. Shelly J. Lundberg & Robert A. Pollak & Terence J. Wales, 1997. "Do Husbands and Wives Pool Their Resources? Evidence from the United Kingdom Child Benefit," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 32(3), pages 463-480.
    20. Chiappori, Pierre-Andre, 1992. "Collective Labor Supply and Welfare," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(3), pages 437-467, June.
    21. Haddad, Lawrence & Hoddinott, John, 1994. "Women's income and boy-girl anthropometric status in the Cote d'Ivoire," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 543-553, April.
    22. Michael Kevane & Leslie Gray, 1999. "A Woman's Field Is Made At Night: Gendered Land Rights And Norms In Burkina Faso," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(3), pages 1-26.
    23. Gavian, Sarah & Ehui, Simeon, 1999. "Measuring the production efficiency of alternative land tenure contracts in a mixed crop-livestock system in Ethiopia," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 37-49, January.
    24. Bina Agarwal, 1997. "''Bargaining'' and Gender Relations: Within and Beyond the Household," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(1), pages 1-51.
    25. von Braun, Joachim & Webb, Patrick J R, 1989. "The Impact of New Crop Technology on the Agricultural Division of Labor in a West African Setting," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(3), pages 513-534, April.
    26. McElroy, Marjorie B & Horney, Mary Jean, 1981. "Nash-Bargained Household Decisions: Toward a Generalization of the Theory of Demand," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 22(2), pages 333-349, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. M. Fafchamps & A. R. Quisumbing, 2002. "Control and Ownership of Assets Within Rural Ethiopian Households," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(6), pages 47-82.

    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:jdevst:v:38:y:2002:i:6:p:47-82. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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/FJDS20 .

    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.