Pro‐girl Bias in Intra‐household Allocation in the Rural Philippines: Revisiting the “Adult Goods” Approach

• Author: Nobuhiko Fuwa
• Date: 01 November 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/rode.12115
• Published date: 01 November 2014

Pro-girl Bias in Intra-household Allocation in

the Rural Philippines: Revisiting the

“Adult Goods” Approach

Nobuhiko Fuwa*

Abstract

This paper detects pro-girl (age 5–15) bias in intra-household 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 house-

hold members is positively associated with a larger budget share on transportation, suggesting that parents

pay more for girls’ transportation, possibly because of 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.

1. Introduction

Gender disparity is an important but often contentious issue. While gender disparity

is regarded as being less serious in Southeast Asia than in South Asia, for example,

the direction of gender disparity in the Philippines has been debated, as we will see in

section 2. One possible reason for the contention could be that there are many poten-

tial aspects of gender disparity, and that gender bias may differ among different

aspects. Parents may discriminate against girls in one aspect, for example, while favor-

ing girls in another to compensate them (Quisumbing et al., 2004). Therefore, it

would be desirable to examine gender disparity in as many aspects as possible.

A majority of the existing studies on gender focus on education, health and labor

market outcomes, in part because individual-level data are widely available on those

aspects. In contrast, gender disparity in intra-household allocation of consumption

budget has been poorly understood owing to the paucity of data on consumption allo-

cation at the individual level. This knowledge gap can potentially be addressed either

by collecting individual-level data on consumption or by making indirect inferences

based on consumption data at the household aggregate level which are widely avail-

able. While a small number of attempts have been made in line with the first

approach, collecting fully individual-level data on consumption would present both

practical and conceptual difficulties. Direct observation of food consumption by indi-

viduals at meal time can be intrusive (thus affecting the respondent’s behavior itself),

and some of consumption goods, such as housing and utility, are public goods not

* Fuwa: Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Waseda University, 1-21-1 Nishi-Waseda, Shinjuku-ku,

Tokyo 169-0051, Japan. Tel: +81-3-5286-3919; Fax: +81-3-5272-4533; E-mail: nfuwa@waseda.jp. The initial

version of this paper was written while the author was with the International Rice Research Institute

(IRRI), where the long-standing collaboration with Esther B. Marciano and Joel Reaño, as well as the gen-

erous support by Mahabub Hossain, was indispensable. The author would also like to thank Jonna P.

Estudillo, Yukichi Mano, and the participants at FASID (Foundation of Advanced Study on International

Development) Monthly Seminar for valuable comments.

Review of Development Economics, 18(4), 727–740, 2014

DOI:10.1111/rode.12115

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd