While most studies on wealth inequality focus on the inequality between households, this paper examines the distribution of wealth within couples. For this purpose, we make use of unique individual level micro data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP). In married and cohabiting...

This paper explores how the relative circumstances of men and women following marital dissolution affect sex-selection behavior within marriages. China's 2001 divorce reform liberalized divorce in favor of women and secured women's property rights after separation. We use this improvement in...

In recent years the increase in the divorce rate in many advanced countries and the predominance of female-headed families among the poor has generated much interest in the relationship between divorce and the welfare of mothers and children. In this paper I will review a small body of economic...

We examine how men and women in mixed-gender unions change the time they allocate to housework in response to labor market promotions and terminations. Operating much like raises, such events have the potential to alter intra-household power dynamics. Using Australian panel data, we estimate...

Increasing women's empowerment is a key objective of many development programs, both as a principal goal and as a path to economic development. We propose and test a novel economic intervention that relies on intra-household transfers of productive assets to increase women's empowerment among...

Commonly described as the "gender care gap", there is a persistent gender difference in the division of domestic responsibilities in most developed countries. We provide novel evidence on the short- and long-run effects of an exogenous shock on paternal availability, through a job loss, on the...

This paper considers the association between intra-household resource allocation and couple financial hardships in Australia. It develops and estimates a collective household model of expenditures on individual-specific necessities and hardship reporting where each partner has a distinct utility...

To understand the household decision-making process regarding food expenditures for children in poor households in Nairobi, we conduct an experiment with 424 married couples. In the experiment, the spouses (individually and jointly) allocated money between themselves and nutritious meals for one...

Whether gender-targeted cash transfers effectively redistribute resources to women and children in poor households remains an open question. We examine Uruguay’s largest social assistance program, Asignaciones Familiares (AFAM), which is directed at poor families with children and paid to...

This paper examines how expecting to receive an inheritance impacts household savings decisions. Life-cycle consumption models indicate that the expectation of inheriting should reduce current savings plans for forward-thinking consumers. We investigate how inheritance expectations shape savings...