All For One Or Each For Her Own: Do Polygamous Families Share and Share Alike?

Abstract

This paper compares unitary and collective models of investment in children in the context of a polygynous family structure (with multiple wives) using a Living Standards Measurement Survey from Côte d’Ivoire. I examine whether the mother’s rank in the household whether she is a senior (first) or junior wife influences her child’s school enrollment, school expenditures, work activities, and educational attainment in early adulthood. I find that being the child of a senior wife positively affects enrollment and school expenditures at the middle school ages, relative to being the child of a junior wife. The children of junior wives participate more in home production, suggesting they are performing tasks that allow the children of senior wives to attend school. Senior children accumulate an additional year of education by their early twenties, leaving junior children at a long term educational disadvantage. The results of fixed effects regressions which take account of unobserved heterogeneity of the fathers are consistent with the evidence of the OLS estimates although imprecisely estimated. This evidence that rank affects investments in children is consistent with the credit-constrained collective model presented in the paper. Thanks to Chris Paxson, Anne Case and Bo Honoré and to Eric Edmonds, Chrissy Eibner, Angie Fertig, Aprajit Mahajan, Doug Miller, Lalith Munasinghe, Elsie Pan, and Alessandro Tarozzi. All errors are mine.