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Why pay child benefits to Mothers?

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Author Info
Frances Woolley () (Department of Economics, Carleton University)

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Abstract

Why pay child benefits to mothers? The "feminist" case for paying benefits to mothers rests on the idea that women may suffer if they have no independent access to economic resources. The "maternalist" case for targeting benefits to mothers rests on the idea that money paid to mothers is more likely to be spent in ways that benefit children. This paper answers the question "Why pay child benefits to mothers?" by asking how households manage their finances. I begin by considering the feminist case for using child benefits to alleviate women's economic dependence. I examine the extent of women's economic dependence first, by considering women's own access to earnings. I then examine unwaged women's dependence on men's incomes. Is income generally placed into a single pool, to which both parents have access, or do partners control their own incomes? How much access to income do unwaged parents enjoy? I then turn to the maternalist case for paying benefits to women. I begin by examining the question of whether or not women, generally speaking, treat their incomes differently from men, and trace the flow of child tax benefits through the household. Do child benefits get deposited into a joint account, an account in one of the parents' names, or an account in the child's name? Is it treated the same way as employment income, or differently? How important are these credits in the overall financial flows of the household?

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Carleton University, Department of Economics in its series Carleton Economic Papers with number 02-08.

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Length: 33 pages
Date of creation: 11 Jun 2002
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Publication status: Published: Carleton Working Paper
Handle: RePEc:car:carecp:02-08

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Related research
Keywords: family child tax credits gender

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
H8 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues
I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. 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. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Cathal O’Donoghue & Holly Sutherland, 1998. "Accounting for the Family: the Treatment of Marriage and Children in European Income Tax Systems," Innocenti Occasional Papers, Economic Policy Series iopeps98/25, UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre. [Downloadable!]
  3. Zhiqi Chen & Frances Woolley, 1999. "A Cournot-Nash Model of Family Decision Making," Carleton Economic Papers 99-13, Carleton University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Phipps, Shelley A & Burton, Peter S, 1998. "What's Mine Is Yours? The Influence of Male and Female Incomes on Patterns of Household Expenditure," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 65(260), pages 599-613, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Browning, M. & Bourguignon, F. & Chiappori, P.A. & Lechene, V., 1992. "Incomes and Outcomes: A structural Model of Intra-Household Allocation," DELTA Working Papers 92-23, DELTA (Ecole normale supérieure).
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Shelley Phipps + Frances Woolley, 2006. "Control over Money and Wealth Accumulation in Canadian Families," Carleton Economic Papers 06-02, Carleton University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  2. Kendra N. McLeish & Robert J. Oxoby, 2007. "Gender, Affect and Intertemporal Consistency: An Experimental Approach," IZA Discussion Papers 2663, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  3. Martin Dooley & Ellen Lipman & Jennifer Stewart, 2005. "Exploring the Good Mother Hypothesis: Do Child Outcomes Vary with the Mother's Share of Income?," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 31(2), pages 123-144, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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