Joint land certification and intra-household decision-making : towards empowerment of wives?

We have used gender-disaggregated household panel data from 2007 and 2012 in combination with dictator games and hawk-dove games to assess the effects of joint land certification of husbands and wives on wives’ involvement in land-related decisions within households. We find that joint land certification has enhanced wives’ knowledge of their rights and their influence in land-related decisions, while about a third of husbands attempt to retain their dominant positions, preferring that women retain only their traditional weak rights. Better market integration is associated with stronger influence by women in land-related decisions. More generous husbands, as revealed by dictator game experiments between husbands and wives, had wives who were more aware of their land rights. The hawk-dove games reveal that wives play tougher and are more hawkish than their husbands when they play against each other. This may indicate that wives dare to stand up and claim their rights within households. Husbands and wives in households that had received joint land certificates were less hawkish towards one another