The Risk of Polygamy and Wives' Saving Behavior
In a polygamous society, all monogamous women are potentially at risk of polygamy. However, the anthropological and economic literatures are silent on the potential impact of the risk of polygamy on the economic decisions of monogamous wives. This paper explores this issue in Senegal, using individual panel data. The paper first estimates a Cox model for the probability of transition to polygamy. Second, it estimates the impact of the predicted risk of polygamy on monogamous wives' savings. The findings show a positive impact of the risk of polygamy on female savings entrusted to formal or informal institutions, which is suggestive of self-protective strategies. The increase in savings comes at the cost of reduced consumption of household food expenditures and wives' private nonfood expenses.
Main Authors: | , |
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Format: | Working Paper biblioteca |
Language: | English en_US |
Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2016-10
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Subjects: | polygamy, economic decisions, savings behavior, household consumption, |
Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/10/26867824/risk-polygamy-wives-saving-behavior https://hdl.handle.net/10986/25306 |
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Summary: | In a polygamous society, all monogamous
women are potentially at risk of polygamy. However, the
anthropological and economic literatures are silent on the
potential impact of the risk of polygamy on the economic
decisions of monogamous wives. This paper explores this
issue in Senegal, using individual panel data. The paper
first estimates a Cox model for the probability of
transition to polygamy. Second, it estimates the impact of
the predicted risk of polygamy on monogamous wives'
savings. The findings show a positive impact of the risk of
polygamy on female savings entrusted to formal or informal
institutions, which is suggestive of self-protective
strategies. The increase in savings comes at the cost of
reduced consumption of household food expenditures and
wives' private nonfood expenses. |
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