We exploit novel data collected within a randomized controlled trial of a sanitation microcredit intervention to study how intra-household gender differences in perceptions of costs and benefits of sanitation impact investment decisions. We show that — as long as the wife is involved in...

We exploit novel data collected within a randomised controlled trial of a sanitation microcredit intervention to study how intra-household gender differences in perceptions of costs and benefits of sanitation impact investment decisions. We show that – as long as the wife is involved in...

In this paper, we develop a theoretical model of household production, bargaining and credit to analyse how access to microcredit affects intra-household decision-making and welfare, and identify conditions under which female household members are most likely to benefit. We show that, consistent...

Historically, son preference has been widely prevalent in South Asia, manifested in the form of skewed sex ratios, gender differentials in child mortality, and worse educational investments in daughters versus sons. In the present study, we show, using data from a purposefully designed...

This paper looks at the determinants of secondary school attendance in Bangladesh with a focus on the interaction between community gender norms and relative supply of madrasas (i.e. Islamic schools). We present a theoretical framework where the probability of children's school participation...

We investigate whether female early marriage is a conduit for the transmission of social norms, specifically norms relating to gender roles and rights within the household. We exploit differences in the age of onset of menarche between sisters as an exogenous source of variation in marriage age....

Despite significant improvement in female schooling over the last two decades, only a small proportion of women in South Asia are in wage employment. We revisit this puzzle using a nationally representative data set from Bangladesh. Probit regression results show that even after accounting for...