find that a higher female income share is associated with a better nutritional status of children (as measured by height for age), suggesting that at least some of the higher food expenditures are child related.

Other authors have documented similar findings for other countries and time periods. Engle (1993) provides cross-sectional data from Guatemala to show that a higher female budget share is associated with better children's nutritional status (measured by height for age, weight for age, and weight for height). Phipps and Burton (1998) use data from the 1992 Expenditure Survey in Canada and focus on married-couple households where both spouses work full time. The authors find that a higher share of wives' income is correlated with higher expenditures on child care, children's clothing, women's clothing, and food. Kennedy and Peters (1992) compare female headed with male headed households in Kenya and Malawi and find that in female headed households (typically headed by a widow, who is often the grandmother of the children in the household), a larger share of the budget is spent on food. The paper also documents better anthropometric outcomes (weight for age and height for age). For Malawi, the paper also documents smaller expenditure shares on alcohol. The econometric specification does not control for income, but interestingly female-headed households have better child anthropometric outcomes despite overall lower incomes. Thomas (1990) uses Brazilian survey data collected in 1974/75 to study gender differences in the impact of non-wage income on health and nutrition in Brazil. He finds that maternal income increases family nutrition by four to seven times more than income of men. Both total calory intake as well as protein intake is affected more by female than by male income. Child survival is highly positively related to unearned income of mothers, and the effect is 20 times larger compared to unearned income of men. Maternal income also has a larger effect on two anthropometric outcomes (weight for height and height for age).

# **2.2  Natural Experiments on Female Income and Child Outcomes**

A second group of papers focuses on natural experiments to verify whether the observed association between female resources and spending on children has a causal interpretation. In Lundberg, Pollak, and Wales (1997), such an experiment is provided by a change in the Child Allowance Law in the 1970s. The universal child benefit that previously consisted of reduced tax withholding from the father was replaced by a cash payment to the mother. The authors find that the change in the law significantly increased the expenditure of children's clothing (and women's clothing) relative to men's clothing.<sup>3</sup> Duflo and Udry (2004) use a natural experiment where exogenous variation in women's relative income is produced by variation in rainfall. In Cote d'Ivoire, women and men cultivate different crops that are differently affected by rainfall. Duflo and Udry (2004) find that a rainfall shock that increases women's relative income increases expenditures on food. A 10 percent increase in income from women's crops is associated with a 4 percent increase in expenditure on purchased foods, while the same increase in men's crops is associated with a 0.3 percent decrease.

Several studies analyze the effects of a major expansion of pension benefits in South

> robust to different specifications.

> 3See also Ward-Batts (2008) for similar findings based on a broader set of goods categories.

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