Labor-intensive jobs for women and development: Intrahousehold welfare effects and its transmission channels

Abstract

We examine the welfare impacts of women getting low-skilled jobs and find large positive effects, both at the household and the individual level. However, the women workers, their husbands and their oldest daughters reduced their leisure, but women to a much larger extent than the others. The leisure of the oldest son did not change. Investigating the transmission mechanisms suggests that the impacts did not only go through income and substitution effects, but also through a bargaining effect. Getting the job likely improved the bargaining position of the wife through several mechanisms, which in turn added to the positive impact on her welfare.