The Impact of a Permanent Income Shock on the Situation of Women in the Household: The Case of a Pension Reform in Argentina

Autores
Berniell, Inés; Mata, Dolores de la; Pinto Machado, Matilde
Año de publicación
2017
Idioma
inglés
Tipo de recurso
documento de trabajo
Estado
versión enviada
Descripción
Income transfers from social programs are often not gender neutral and should, according to the vast literature on intra-household decision making and allocation, affect the distribution of bargaining power within the household. This result, however, was by and large established under the assumption of marriage stability. If this assumption does not hold, then the positive response of bargaining power to income found in the empirical research may be the artefact of sample selection. One may postulate, however, that when restricted to certain groups in the population, such as seniors, the assumption may hold since their probability of divorce is close to zero. In this paper we prove that the assumption is wrong, even when applied to seniors. We use a non-contributory pension reform in Argentina, that resulted in an unexpected and substantial increase in permanent income for around 1.8 million women, to study its effects on outcomes related to both marital stability and women’s bargaining power within the household. We find that the reform increased the probability of divorce/separation among senior highly educated women but had no impact on the low-educated. Instead, the latter gained considerable bargaining power within the household by decreasing the probability of being the only one in charge of household chores in tandem with an increase in their husbands’ participation in these chores.
Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS)
Materia
Ciencias Económicas
Divorcio
intra-household bargaining power
marital disruption
non-contributory pensions
public transfers
Nivel de accesibilidad
acceso abierto
Condiciones de uso
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Repositorio
SEDICI (UNLP)
Institución
Universidad Nacional de La Plata
OAI Identificador
oai:sedici.unlp.edu.ar:10915/65380

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spelling The Impact of a Permanent Income Shock on the Situation of Women in the Household: The Case of a Pension Reform in ArgentinaBerniell, InésMata, Dolores de laPinto Machado, MatildeCiencias EconómicasDivorciointra-household bargaining powermarital disruptionnon-contributory pensionspublic transfersIncome transfers from social programs are often not gender neutral and should, according to the vast literature on intra-household decision making and allocation, affect the distribution of bargaining power within the household. This result, however, was by and large established under the assumption of marriage stability. If this assumption does not hold, then the positive response of bargaining power to income found in the empirical research may be the artefact of sample selection. One may postulate, however, that when restricted to certain groups in the population, such as seniors, the assumption may hold since their probability of divorce is close to zero. In this paper we prove that the assumption is wrong, even when applied to seniors. We use a non-contributory pension reform in Argentina, that resulted in an unexpected and substantial increase in permanent income for around 1.8 million women, to study its effects on outcomes related to both marital stability and women’s bargaining power within the household. We find that the reform increased the probability of divorce/separation among senior highly educated women but had no impact on the low-educated. Instead, the latter gained considerable bargaining power within the household by decreasing the probability of being the only one in charge of household chores in tandem with an increase in their husbands’ participation in these chores.Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS)2017-10info:eu-repo/semantics/workingPaperinfo:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersionDocumento de trabajohttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_8042info:ar-repo/semantics/documentoDeTrabajoapplication/pdfhttp://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/65380enginfo:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/url/http://www.cedlas.econo.unlp.edu.ar/wp/wp-content/uploads/doc_cedlas218.pdfinfo:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/issn/1853-0168info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccesshttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)reponame:SEDICI (UNLP)instname:Universidad Nacional de La Platainstacron:UNLP2025-10-15T11:01:35Zoai:sedici.unlp.edu.ar:10915/65380Institucionalhttp://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/Universidad públicaNo correspondehttp://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/oai/snrdalira@sedici.unlp.edu.arArgentinaNo correspondeNo correspondeNo correspondeopendoar:13292025-10-15 11:01:35.218SEDICI (UNLP) - Universidad Nacional de La Platafalse
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv The Impact of a Permanent Income Shock on the Situation of Women in the Household: The Case of a Pension Reform in Argentina
title The Impact of a Permanent Income Shock on the Situation of Women in the Household: The Case of a Pension Reform in Argentina
spellingShingle The Impact of a Permanent Income Shock on the Situation of Women in the Household: The Case of a Pension Reform in Argentina
Berniell, Inés
Ciencias Económicas
Divorcio
intra-household bargaining power
marital disruption
non-contributory pensions
public transfers
title_short The Impact of a Permanent Income Shock on the Situation of Women in the Household: The Case of a Pension Reform in Argentina
title_full The Impact of a Permanent Income Shock on the Situation of Women in the Household: The Case of a Pension Reform in Argentina
title_fullStr The Impact of a Permanent Income Shock on the Situation of Women in the Household: The Case of a Pension Reform in Argentina
title_full_unstemmed The Impact of a Permanent Income Shock on the Situation of Women in the Household: The Case of a Pension Reform in Argentina
title_sort The Impact of a Permanent Income Shock on the Situation of Women in the Household: The Case of a Pension Reform in Argentina
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Berniell, Inés
Mata, Dolores de la
Pinto Machado, Matilde
author Berniell, Inés
author_facet Berniell, Inés
Mata, Dolores de la
Pinto Machado, Matilde
author_role author
author2 Mata, Dolores de la
Pinto Machado, Matilde
author2_role author
author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Ciencias Económicas
Divorcio
intra-household bargaining power
marital disruption
non-contributory pensions
public transfers
topic Ciencias Económicas
Divorcio
intra-household bargaining power
marital disruption
non-contributory pensions
public transfers
dc.description.none.fl_txt_mv Income transfers from social programs are often not gender neutral and should, according to the vast literature on intra-household decision making and allocation, affect the distribution of bargaining power within the household. This result, however, was by and large established under the assumption of marriage stability. If this assumption does not hold, then the positive response of bargaining power to income found in the empirical research may be the artefact of sample selection. One may postulate, however, that when restricted to certain groups in the population, such as seniors, the assumption may hold since their probability of divorce is close to zero. In this paper we prove that the assumption is wrong, even when applied to seniors. We use a non-contributory pension reform in Argentina, that resulted in an unexpected and substantial increase in permanent income for around 1.8 million women, to study its effects on outcomes related to both marital stability and women’s bargaining power within the household. We find that the reform increased the probability of divorce/separation among senior highly educated women but had no impact on the low-educated. Instead, the latter gained considerable bargaining power within the household by decreasing the probability of being the only one in charge of household chores in tandem with an increase in their husbands’ participation in these chores.
Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS)
description Income transfers from social programs are often not gender neutral and should, according to the vast literature on intra-household decision making and allocation, affect the distribution of bargaining power within the household. This result, however, was by and large established under the assumption of marriage stability. If this assumption does not hold, then the positive response of bargaining power to income found in the empirical research may be the artefact of sample selection. One may postulate, however, that when restricted to certain groups in the population, such as seniors, the assumption may hold since their probability of divorce is close to zero. In this paper we prove that the assumption is wrong, even when applied to seniors. We use a non-contributory pension reform in Argentina, that resulted in an unexpected and substantial increase in permanent income for around 1.8 million women, to study its effects on outcomes related to both marital stability and women’s bargaining power within the household. We find that the reform increased the probability of divorce/separation among senior highly educated women but had no impact on the low-educated. Instead, the latter gained considerable bargaining power within the household by decreasing the probability of being the only one in charge of household chores in tandem with an increase in their husbands’ participation in these chores.
publishDate 2017
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2017-10
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info:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersion
Documento de trabajo
http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_8042
info:ar-repo/semantics/documentoDeTrabajo
format workingPaper
status_str submittedVersion
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dc.language.none.fl_str_mv eng
language eng
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info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/issn/1853-0168
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
rights_invalid_str_mv http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
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instname:Universidad Nacional de La Plata
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repository.name.fl_str_mv SEDICI (UNLP) - Universidad Nacional de La Plata
repository.mail.fl_str_mv alira@sedici.unlp.edu.ar
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