The impact of a social program on women bargaining power: The case of AUH in Argentina

Abstract

There is a vast literature studying the effects of social transfers on women’s decision-making power within households. The evidence typically shows a positive impact in this regard measured by female expenditure-related decisions. However, the higher women’s relevance as a decisionmaker driven by social programs could also increase their responsibilities, limit their autonomy in other several dimensions and hence exacerbate traditional gender roles. In this paper we empirically evaluate the theoretically ambiguous effect of a CCT program in Argentina - the AUH - on women’s intra-household bargaining power. The implementation of the AUH implied a significant increase on women’s household income share given that they were prioritized as recipients of the benefit. However, our main results suggest the program increased couple stability and did not change women’s probability of being the main household member in charge of domestic chores. Moreover, we find that the program decreased bargaining power for women with more children, for whom the AUH benefit is larger.