Cooperative Conflicts and Gender Relations: Experimental Evidence from Southeast Uganda

This study analyzes research results from experimental games played in the predominantly Bagisu area of Uganda in 2005. The games were designed to understand how husbands and wives manage household funds in relation to Amartya Sen's model of cooperative conflicts, which is widely used as a heuristic device for understanding intrahousehold bargaining. This study questions Sen's emphasis on the lower self-perceptions of personal welfare among women and on the role of cash contributions to the household as the basis of bargaining power, and it argues for a broader characterization of breakdown positions.