HeforShe: Bargaining Power, Parental Beliefs, and Parental Investments
by Adeline Delavande with Alejandrina Cristia, Pauline Grosjean, and Sarah Walker
Abstract: We study the dynamics between intra-household bargaining and parental time-intensive investments in children. We combine novel measures of verbal investments and beliefs about the returns to investment for both mothers and fathers with hyper-local variation in female bargaining power stemming from traditional inheritance practices. Female bargaining power is associated with higher quantity and quality of paternal investment, but only when mothers expect investments to improve child language. These results are consistent with the prediction of a collective model in which powerful women elicit paternal investment when they believe it is important.