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The study tests different economic models in households through experimental games, exploring factors influencing altruistic behavior and decision-making power within households. Conducted in two diverse regions in Senegal, the research challenges the unitary model and presents conclusions on gender-specific behaviors in various game scenarios.
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An Experimental Study of Bargaining Behavior within Households in Rural Senegal Gerrit Antonides and Rianne van Beek
Purpose of the study • Testing for different household economic models in experimental games • Unitary model vs. bargaining models; • Altruistic behavior; • Determinants of behavior.
Does gender division of labour, income and wealth explain altruistic behavior in experimental games? • From survey research a number of factors is known to influence decision power and division of consumption: • Partners’ wage rates, education, age, children; • Extra-household environmental parameters (culture, law, threat points); • Gender-specific environmental parameters (cost of child care, child alimony).
Experiment in two areas in Senegal where position of females is different • Sylvo-pastoral area, female work is considered relatively unimportant, but women partly own and take care of the cattle; • Agro-pastoral area, female work is considered relatively important, but women own few cattle.
Experimental games • Dictator game (dividing 10 points); • Ultimatum game, played both as allocator and recipient (dividing 10 points); • Prisoner’s dilemma game: C D • C 6, 6 0,10 • D 10,0 4, 4
Experimental procedures • All games were played both between spouses and between strangers of the opposite sex, in different order; • Spouses were located in different rooms to prevent communication; • 40 households from each of the two areas (N=160); • One of the games was selected randomly for pay-out in a choice of personal (clothing tissue) and household goods (rice, tea, sugar).
Conclusions from Dictator Game • Unitary model rejected in the agro-pastoral area; • Men offer less in the agro-pastoral area than in the sylvo-pastoral area, women behave the same; • Men in the agro-pastoral area offer less than women.
Conclusions from allocations in the Ultimatum Game • Unitary model rejected in the agro-pastoral area; • Both men and women offer less to their spouses in the agro-pastoral area than in the sylvo-pastoral area; • Women offer more to strangers, men offer less to strangers in the agro-pastoral area than in the sylvo-pastoral area; • Allocations in Dictator Game not very different from allocations in Ultimatum Game.
Conclusions from demands made in the Dictator Game • Men demand less in the agro-pastoral area than in the sylvo-pastoral area, women demand the same; • Men demand less than women in the agro-pastoral area, they demand about the same in the sylvo-pastoral area.
Conclusions from Prisoner’s Dilemma Game • Cooperative behavior of spouses (54.6%) not significantly different than cooperative behavior of strangers (64.0%).
Conclusions from different games • Unitary model rejected (from DG, UG and PD); • Men offer less in the agro-pastoral area than in the sylvo-pastoral area, also they offer less than women in the agro-pastoral area.
Choice of payment No relation with behavior in the games
Effects of decision making variables • Negative effect of reported income sharing on offering behavior in the games; • Negative effect of importance of wife’s work on husband’s offering; • No effect of management of finance, buying food, borrowing money, on offering behavior; • No effect of ownership of cattle, land, assets, on offering behavior; • Al of this is not supporting bargaining models.
