Essays on Women’s Control over Income, Maternal Cash Transfers, and Rainfall Shocks: Evidence from India and Malawi

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2021In this dissertation, I conduct three studies on women’s economic empowerment in India and Malawi. The first study examines the effect of an Indian maternal cash transfer program on child nutrition. The second study explores variation in women’s control over income by income type and family structure in Malawian households. Also in Malawi, the third study analyzes the effect of rainfall deficits on women’s control over income. In my first chapter, I ask: 1) What are the effects of a universal maternal cash transfer program “Mamata Scheme” in Odisha, India on child nutrition? 2) To what extent do program effects vary by household wealth? I use a triple differences estimation and nationally representative survey data from the National Family Health Survey to test the effect of the Mamata Scheme on standardized height and weight measures for children under five. I find improvements in some, but not all, measures of child nutrition following the implementation of the Mamata Scheme. I find evidence of wealth heterogeneities in the program’s effects. Improvements in child nutrition are concentrated in children from non-poor households. Taken together, the results suggest that maternal cash benefits improve child nutrition, but universal schemes such as Mamata may need to offer additional incentives and/or improve targeting for children from poor households to realize program benefits. In the second chapter, I ask: 1) Does women’s control over household income differ by income type? 2) Is there a relationship between family structure, women’s demographic characteristics, and women’s control over income? I use the Fourth Malawi Integrated Household Survey (IHS-4) to examine women’s control over various sources of household income, including public and private transfers, farm, and non-farm earnings. Using descriptive and multivariate logistic regression analyses, I find that in households with both adult men and women, women have higher odds of having sole control over transfer income, compared to income from farm and non-farm sources. I also find that the presence of a male spouse (versus another adult man) in the household is associated with significantly lower sole female control over transfers. Further, I find that female characteristics, especially age, divorce, and widowhood increase the probability of controlling transfers. The results shed important light on women’s financial decision-making patterns in agricultural households. Specifically, household income received through remittances and transfer programs is associated with higher female decision-making authority, a key insight for policy interventions aimed at increasing women’s control over financial resources. In the third chapter I ask: 1) How do negative rainfall shocks affect women’s control over household income? 2) Do effects vary by income type? Using three rounds of the Malawi Integrated Household Panel Survey (IHPS), I employ a household-year fixed-effects identification to test whether female control over farm, nonfarm, and transfer income changes in response to drought shocks. In dual-adult households, a drought shock increases women’s control over farm income, while there is no change in female control over total household income. I also find that rainfall shocks increase the probability of a household having a farm plot that is solely managed by a woman. The results suggest that drought alters intra-household decision-making, particularly related to the farm. While control over income is typically used as a proxy for women’s economic empowerment, the findings suggest that changes in control over income in response to climatic factors such as rainfall variability may not reflect an absolute improvement in women’s empowerment