TY - JOUR
T1 - Partners or Rivals? Exploring the Relationship between Men’s and Women’s Empowerment in Bangladesh
AU - Akter, Sonia
AU - Francis-tan, Andrew
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - The aim of this study is to investigate the statistical relationship between husbands’ empowerment and wives’ empowerment. Using panel data from Bangladesh that include over 4,000 husband-wife pairs, we regress husband’s empowerment on wife’s empowerment and a set of covariates. We use a domain-based framework, similar to the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index, to capture the multidimensional nature of empowerment. The findings reveal that the interplay between spouses’ empowerment varies across domains. Husbands and wives act as partners with regard to community influence and daily workload adequacy. Yet, they act as rivals with regard to input in productive decisions and ownership of assets. Additionally, we identify variables that are consistently associated with husbands’ and wives’ empowerment. For wives, their income and employment are positive correlates of empowerment. For husbands, their wives’ employment is a negative correlate, whereas household wealth is a positive correlate. Notably, the results also suggest that the gender asset gap rises with household wealth.
AB - The aim of this study is to investigate the statistical relationship between husbands’ empowerment and wives’ empowerment. Using panel data from Bangladesh that include over 4,000 husband-wife pairs, we regress husband’s empowerment on wife’s empowerment and a set of covariates. We use a domain-based framework, similar to the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index, to capture the multidimensional nature of empowerment. The findings reveal that the interplay between spouses’ empowerment varies across domains. Husbands and wives act as partners with regard to community influence and daily workload adequacy. Yet, they act as rivals with regard to input in productive decisions and ownership of assets. Additionally, we identify variables that are consistently associated with husbands’ and wives’ empowerment. For wives, their income and employment are positive correlates of empowerment. For husbands, their wives’ employment is a negative correlate, whereas household wealth is a positive correlate. Notably, the results also suggest that the gender asset gap rises with household wealth.
U2 - 10.1080/00220388.2020.1826448
DO - 10.1080/00220388.2020.1826448
M3 - Article
VL - 57
SP - 906
EP - 929
JO - The Journal of Development Studies
JF - The Journal of Development Studies
IS - 6
ER -