Pro-Girl Bias in Intrahousehold Allocation in the Rural Philippines: Revisiting the ‘adult goods’ approach

This paper detects pro-girl (age 5-15) bias in intrahousehold allocation of consumption budget in the rural Philippines using Deaton’s “adult goods” method. Based on additional checks (including those for endogeneity), the results appear to be robust. The paper also finds that a larger share of girls among household members is positively associated with a larger budget share on transportation, suggesting that parents pay more for girls’ transportation, possibly due to safety concerns. The results also suggest that, despite some earlier results in the literature, the adult goods method is capable of detecting gender bias, although alcohol and tobacco may not be suitable for detecting gender bias.