An appreciation of the complexities of gender-based conflict offers an explanation of why women may not always favor cultural modernization and may in fact endorse fundamentalist forms of resistance to it. Part of the answer may lie in the institutional logic linking relationships between men and women to those between parents and children. In traditional patriarchal regimes landownership gave fathers leverage over children and allowed them to expect at least some benefits in the form of labor contributions and support in old age. Although this system intensified the economic incentives for coercive forms of control over women, it also provided an implicit rate of return for women's reproductive labor. But with the shrinking of farms and the increase in individual employment, these incentives break down.
Men have less to gain from children's labor.
Maximizing fertility thus becomes a less attractive economic strategy, and family commitments become more costly. Thus we see women in many countries engaging in collective action to enhance their rights to land. The institutional framework of family rights has implications for both economic and demographic decisionmaking. In particular, the welfare of women and their children is shaped largely by their claims on the income of fathers. Historically, these contracts were defined largely by men and gave them important benefits.